Student Clubs Stay on Track Despite 40% COOP Budget Cut

Students perform at EU Unplugged Oct 19, 2024. The event is run by EU’s Music Business Student Union, an organization which relies on COOP funding for many of its events. (PC: Ian Murphy)

The Cooperative Funding (COOP) budget was cut by an estimated 40%, from last year’s $100,000 to $61,500, an amount that was received by the COOP Funding Committee on Sept. 30, 26 days late. Club activity has soared regardless, and there has been no denial of funds for events as a result.

The COOP funding process is designed to help support events by non-budgeted organizations. Student representatives from Union Board and Student Government Association (SGA) make up the committee that approves or denies funding requests. These requests may be made throughout the year, but at least two weeks in advance by filling out the COOP funding form.

Historically, the COOP Committee receives its budget by the 10th day of the academic school year. This allows the committee to allocate funds for events that organizations request.

While waiting for the amount, Vice President of Finance for SGA and COOP Committee Chair Sam Cotton explained that clubs continued to receive funding, and the committee would subtract any allocated funds from the budget once they received it.

Cotton met with Vice President of Student Affairs Keri Alioto to discuss the change and what steps the committee could take if the budget ends up getting low. There, he learned that the budget was calculated based on the average spending of the last four years.

The COOP Committee has received and approved more than double the number of submissions that were approved by the same time last year. Cotton explained the trend.

“Last year, from what we were told, we got $100,000 and this year it’s $61,500, which is, some would say, a significant drop, but, truly, looking at how much we spent and what we’re on pace to spend this year, we’ve approved a lot more [requests] this year compared to last year, but looking at the pace, it looks like we’re going to be completely fine,” said Cotton.

The COOP budget ran out of funds two years ago. As a result, part of the 2024-2025 COOP budget was allocated to covering the overage from the 2023-2024 budget; so although the club received $100,000 last year, the usable budget was less.

Cotton emphasized he was not concerned about clubs failing to receive funding at any point during the year.

Students from EU’s Music Business Student Union present a poster at the Fall Involvement Fair Aug 28. MBSU is one of many student organizations that utilize COOP funding throughout the year. (PC: Elmhurst University)

“I know that at the end of the year, if we come up short, we can go to [Student Affairs] and they would be willing to help us,” said Cotton.

In addition to a rise in COOP requests and increased student engagement, Cotton pointed to a recent update to the request process that he said will improve efficiency.

“We did add something new to the COOP form this year, which I’m really excited about — there’s now an option to upload quotes, price estimates, and Chartwells approval,” said Cotton. “For any outside food, we need that approval. We added that this year because it’s a lot of hassle to send emails back and forth between student orders, and then they have to be delayed… So now it’s more efficient, I think that’s huge.”