The Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC) recently announced it will have a $165,000 budget for the fall semester. This total includes approximately $65,000 for operating budget clubs such as Bowdoin Student Government (BSG), The Bowdoin Orient and College Houses. The remaining $100,000 will be start to be allocated to clubs that do not run on an annual operating budget once the SAFC commences regular meetings next week.

Usually, the SAFC budget is about $715,000, around $650,000 of which is designated for operating budget clubs. The remaining sum is typically used by clubs that are not on an annual budget during the remainder of the academic year.

Operating budgets are usually allocated at the end of the spring semester for use during the following year. In an email sent to club leaders in August, BSG Chair of the Treasury Prithvi Gunturu ’22 wrote that the SAFC would have significantly less funding this year than in previous years.

“This also means that any funds that were allocated to operating budget clubs or any other clubs at the end of the spring 2020 semester for use during the 2020-21 academic year are funds that the SAFC does not currently have and cannot allocate to you,” wrote Gunturu.

This year, funding will be administered on a semesterly basis due to uncertainty about the College’s decision for the spring semester.

“When we come to the spring semester, that budget is going to change based on how many people are actually on campus,” said Gunturu in a phone interview with the Orient. “That’s a huge factor in the amount of programming that happens and what the actual budget will be.”

Though this budget is significantly reduced from previous years, Gunturu wrote that almost all requests for funding were approved in their entirety. He added that there are a few remaining requests that the SAFC will make decisions on when they begin meeting on Monday and that club leaders will be able to request more funding through a form in CampusGroups.