With the middle of the fall semester now approaching, many clubs have begun to make plans for the rest of the year with their budgets. However, many clubs are grappling with reduced budgets with some appealing lost funding in initiative meetings.
General discontent with the SGA budget allocation towards clubs began with the announcement of the Boogie Wit Da Hoodie concert Sept. 4.
This announcement was made around the same time clubs started initiatives meetings. These meetings took place to allocate funds for clubs that didn’t apply for a budget last year or who were unsatisfied with the budget their club was given this year. Budgets for clubs that have proven themselves to be staples of the Suffolk community have been cut and newer clubs have had issues getting budgets at all, even when they applied for them.
Suffolk’s Venture Literary and Arts Magazine was founded in 1967 and its leadership believe the magazine to be of extra importance this year due to national bans on books. Venture asked for $5,000 and only received half of that for the 2025-2026 school year, according to Matilyn Paul, the editor-in-chief of the magazine.
Paul is a Suffolk University double major in English and history. Paul told The Journal that she was disappointed when hearing the news that their budget had been cut in half. She stated that Venture had assumed it was a reasonable ask.
“At a school with no real campus and a lack of community, the clubs are the one glue that hold Suffolk together, and many of them are being ignored,” said Paul. “I would like to call for a better system of financial distribution that relies on checks and balances to ensure clubs are not favored but instead that their budgets are taken more seriously and analyzed in a better way.”
Paul also said that Venture’s plans for the year had to be drastically downsized due to the cuts in their budget.
Another club that has been seen as a staple of the Suffolk community is W!CKED, Suffolk’s hip-hop dance crew. W!CKED had gone to initiatives to ask for money in their budget for two events that have been traditions for the club for eight years: Monsters Dance Convention and their annual show in the spring titled “EXCLAMAT!ON.”
At the Monsters Dance Convention, W!CKED members learn from over seven different industry professionals who have worked with notable celebrities. W!CKED’s members describe it as a highly anticipated event that boosts team morale and increases their skills and technique. Unfortunately, W!CKED only received a quarter of what was needed for Monsters Dance Convention during initiatives and will not be able to attend this year.
“I really empathize with our new members who really don’t know what they are missing and won’t get the same experience that I had as a first year W!CKED member,” said Casey Wells, a Suffolk senior and a W!CKED e-board member. Wells is also a staff writer on the Suffolk Journal.
Additionally, W!CKED’s annual show “EXCLAIMAT!ON” won’t be able to take place at the venue where it’s been held previous years. Wells, as a senior, said she feels heartbroken that her final show won’t be what she imagined and expressed frustration with how SGA has handled financials for clubs.
“SGA especially prides itself on taking care and being cognizant of the PAO community, but does not show it. This isn’t just for W!CKED, this is for all of the PAO groups and clubs that feel underappreciated and underrepresented,” said Wells.
Older clubs are not the only groups being presented with difficulties with their budgets. The Dungeons and Dragons club on campus that was founded in the spring semester of last year also faced difficulties. The club’s e-board submitted their budget on time last year, having been unaware that the deadline for submissions had been moved back by a few hours. At the time, SGA took their submission since the club hadn’t been notified of the new deadline and their submission was only 30 minutes late. However, when the club moved to use their budget to get pizza for their first meeting this year, they were notified that they did not have a budget. SGA informed them that their application had been lost and that they would have to attend an initiatives meeting.
As a result of their loss of a budget, the Dungeons and Dragons Club has not been able to fulfill some of their plans for events this year. They did receive funds from their initiative meetings, but like the other clubs it was less than what was requested.
“Going through this was quite a shock and not something I was at all prepared for. My friends and I started the club last year and believed that most of the stress and troubles were over with,” said Gianna Garufi, a sophomore at Suffolk and a founder of the Dungeons and Dragons club.
The reasoning for the lack of funding to clubs has not been commented on by SGA.
