Optimizing SMU Student Senate Budgeting Procedure Kevin Lavelle

SMU Senate Budgeting Procedure SMU Student Senate allocates $650,000 with $1 million in requests 120 organizations, 11 funding categories Finance Committee collects all individual budgets on standardized Excel sheet Not focus on front-end of data collection User input too difficult to manage

Current process: going through and allocating funds in fair manner until all are exhausted Issues surrounding funding: Misuse of funds Over requesting of funds Ensuring equality SMU Senate Budgeting Procedure

Development of Project Arlene Manthey, development officer for Division of Student Affairs wanted a list of partially funded and unfunded projects Currently: “go find it yourself” Difficulty for student organizations to navigate the budgeting process Turnover

Analysis of the Situation Knapsack problem Runaway child can only carry so many pounds (weight); wants to get the most (maximize) enjoyment (value) out items he brings n items, 1-n, with each item i having cost, c i, and value v i United States military utilizes knapsack problem in its capital budgeting procedures

Initial Decisions Website for data collection deemed infeasible Utilize Excel Develop prototype Small scale, matter of translation for real world application Five organizations, three categories: airline, conference, food

How to Value? Mathematics is objective, this model needs to incorporate subjectivity from the start to be practical Three penalty levels, 1-10 scale

Value No penalty: good use of funds, no problems Penalty Level 1: Late, didn’t show up to budget interview, over requested in previous years Penalty Level 2: Combination of above offenses, misuses of funds

Variables Simple variables that easily correspond back to real world items they reference Group = organization Project = budget category Decision variables, allow for partial funding G1P1, G1P2...G5P3.6G2P3 means fund 60% of group 2 project 3

Data Used Random assignments that fall under the value scheme previously discussed $6,350 in total requests, $4,000 available; 65%

Constraints Available budget Equivalent of at least one fully funded project Restrictions on composition of category % Airline: 35%; Conference: 45%; Food: 20% At least 50% of budget requests fulfilled Other constraints: positive, <= 1

Constraints Maximize sum of value of each project

results

Total Requested Vs. Allocated

Results

Conclusion Potential to dramatically improve the SMU Student Senate budgeting procedure Functions on prototype level, matter of translation to implement this on full scale level Excellent starting point for Finance Committee to move forward from and make any necessary changes

Recommendations Student Senate should form committee to explore feasibility and benefits of implementing this on full scale It would need to revise rules behind overall budgeting procedure; present any necessary changes to full Senate Develop comprehensive guidelines to assign value to each budget request Hire someone to develop full scale model and train on usage

Implications Can help not only the Finance Committee, but Senate itself be more effective in allocation of funds Easy to read list for people like Arlene to reference for fundraising Get more money to student organizations Help the SMU Student Body as a whole

Questions?