Co-Senator, Rachel Leonard, leads a CUSG board meeting in the UMC. (Robert Hylton/CU Independent)

The CUSG Legislative Council kicked off the Spring 2015 semester with the first-reading passing/rejecting of a bill to decrease the Student Group Funding Board’s (SGFB) funding allocation cap.

The final decision on the bill will be made at next week’s legislative council meeting.

The bill places a cap of $15,000 on how much money the SGFB can give to individual student groups, down from previous cap of $20,000. A $5,000 cap would be placed on travel budgets for student groups.

“There is a huge gap between what we give to student groups and what we get from finance board,” SGFB chair Bin Cao, a senior chemical engineering major, said.

Cao said the cuts would keep the SGFB going for the next fiscal year.

“Student groups, whether or not they want to travel, are  going to have to look elsewhere for funding,” finance board chair Jake Jeronimus, a senior economics major, said. A clause in the bill would give the SGFB the authority to override the cap with a majority vote.

“Some groups absolutely need to travel,” Cao said. Cao named the model U.N. as an example.

Cao said four student groups are in the area of the cap currently, but more will be affected by the new cap.

“The vast majority of student groups are not going to be affected by this cap,” Cao said

Last semester, a bill was passed combining the SGFB with the Student Involvement Office.

The bill would go into effect at the beginning of the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

CUSG members listen to a student proposal in the UMC on Jan 15, 2014. (Robert Hylton/CU Independent)

Contact CU Independent Breaking News Editor Sam Klomhaus at samuel.klomhaus@Colorado.edu