The King's Council updates budgets, inducts new club

The King’s Council handed over the supervision of City Engagement and its budget to Student Development at the first Council meeting of the 2012-2013 academic year Tuesday, Sept. 4. The Council also approved the Ski Club and the year’s Council budget.

Ally Philobos requested an additional $750 for City Engagement to fund speaker honorariums, event food, and a salary for a possible new marketing staff member. This budget request is three times larger than City Engagement’s request last year.

Also during the meeting, Grant Olson and Carly Hoilman proposed the creation of a Ski Club and gave a presentation on its benefits. Hoilman said that a Ski Club would foster community and bring greater diversity to the list of student organizations at King's, making the school more attractive to prospective students.

Olson, whose Ski Club proposal brought before last year's Council was rejected, took an unconventional approach to the club's budget request. Instead of requesting a particular amount of money, he detailed the cost of each trip the club would take and then asked the Council for “whatever you can give.”

After extensive discussion, the Council approved the Ski Club as an official student club. The club's budget will be considered along with the other organizations' proposals by the Organization Budget Committee, which was selected as the final action of this Council meeting.

The Committee will be chaired by A.J. Aran, and also includes Allison Bates, Bonhoeffer President Peter Flemming, and Reagan President David Dantzler. They will meet over the next two weeks and propose allocations to the Council at their next meeting, Sept. 18.

The House presidents approved the Council budget, a move which followed learning they would not have access to the House funds until the next Council meeting two weeks later if they postponed the vote till then.

Bates, the director of finance, reported on the Budget Committee's proposed allocations. The Committee, which consists of Bates, Body President Sam Tran, Flemming and Dantzler, met at the end of last year and over the past several weeks to divide the Council budget of $88,715 between 11 different line items.

Tran said the Budget Committee tried to cut as many expenses as possible, including decreases to the student organizations and House competitions allocations, and slashing the Spring Formal budget nearly in half.

Additional items of business included postponing the annual King's Council retreat until early next semester and an update from the director of student events, sophomore Sarah Doyal, that included plans for the annual Fall Picnic and Spirit Week events.