USAC allocates more funding to Bruin Bash and activities fair

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 The undergraduate student government allocated $40,000 of this year’s projected surplus to fund Bruin Bash and the Enormous Activities Fair, after students organizing the event said its current level of funding was insufficient.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council approved the extra funding with a 10-0-2 vote at their meeting on Tuesday. The annual events are put on by the Campus Events Commission, the Cultural Affairs Commission, UCLA Recreation, Associated Students UCLA and the Center for Student Programming during zero week. The artists for Bruin Bash will be revealed this Sunday.

The Chancellor’s office, the Undergraduate Students Association Council and other sponsors typically fund the events.

Campus Events Commissioner Jessica Kim and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Jessica Trumble worked with Kiran Mistry, UCLA outreach and community services manager, to find sponsorship for the event this year. Kim and Trumble abstained from the council’s vote Tuesday to avoid a conflict of interest.

Event organizers had about $82,000 more to start out with than students did last year, but they still projected that they would run a deficit of $52,000.

The $40,000 from USAC makes up for a lack of funding secured from sponsors this year. Event organizers obtained a significantly smaller amount of funding from off-campus sponsors than they received in the past.

Last year, councilmembers had obtained about $40,000 from sponsors by this time. Kim and Trumble have secured about $5,000 from one sponsor so far.

Roy Champawat, director of the UCLA Student Union, said at the meeting that it is not unusual for the council to allocate money from USAC surpluses to fund Bruin Bash and the Enormous Activities Fair. Last year, the council allocated almost double the funding – about $78,000 – to Bruin Bash and the Enormous Activities Fair.

Trumble said she and Kim tried to decrease costs this year wherever they could and saved money by cutting the number of booked artists from three to two. The students projected that this year’s event will cost about $171,000 or more, which is about $16,000 less than last year’s events.

The Bruin Bash referendum was created last year to ensure students had enough money to book artists and plan the event. USAC already contributed $82,000 of funding from reserve and surplus funds to Bruin Bash, which will be replaced by funds collected from the Bruin Bash fee this year.

The referendum passed in the spring elections, adding $1.33 per quarter to student fees to provide a stable funding source for Bruin Bash.

On top of the Bruin Bash referendum, the Chancellor’s office donated $37,000 to help fund the event – an amount similar to the Chancellor’s donation last year.

Kim attributed this year’s projected drop in sponsor funding to a change in the market and bad luck.

“Sponsorships are an unstable funding source,” Kim said. “Just because a company was willing to be generous last year doesn’t mean it will be this year.”

A drop in the number of campus tour groups that were interested in sponsoring the Enormous Activities Fair contributed to the decrease in funds, Mistry said.

The extra funding from the Bruin Bash Referendum helped Kim and Trumble book artists earlier in the summer, but it was still not enough to cover the costs of Bruin Bash, Kim said.

Kim said event organizers are continuing to seek funding from potential sponsors and that the exact cost of the event is not yet set.

Correction: Kiran Mistry’s name was misspelled.