The UGBC Senate voted to approve a $364,275 budget for the 2025–26 academic year at its meeting Tuesday night—a $7,000 increase from this year’s $357,275 budget.
Meghan Heckelman, outgoing UGBC president and LSEHD ’25, presented the budget proposal with Alexandra Lasch, director of financial affairs and MCAS ’27.
All student senators present voted in favor of the proposed budget, which will be sent to the Division of Student Affairs for final approval.
The budget is broken down among UGBC’s eight divisions: Executive Council, Queer Leadership Council (QLC), Communications, Student Initiatives (SI), Senate, Environmental Sustainability, AHANA+ Leadership Council (ALC), and Council for Students with Disabilities (CSD).
Executive Council: $64,550 ($100 decrease)
In the past two years, UGBC proposed significant increases to the Executive Council budget—$32,850 and $22,550, respectively. This year, however, the division’s budget saw a modest $100 decrease.
The Executive Council budget includes a $15,000 line item for the annual UGBC retreat, down slightly from this year’s retreat, which came in at $15,962.90. Student senators debated the retreat’s price tag during the meeting.
“We are coming closer together and learning from each other, but is that directly serving your student body?” said Katie McCaffrey, student senator and MCAS ’25. “Maybe not as much as you think.”
McCaffrey pointed out that the UGBC retreat exceeds the entire environmental sustainability division budget of $14,800.
“That can be controversial, especially if students find out that $15,000 is going to an internal retreat,” McCaffrey said.
James Mangraviti, student senator and MCAS ’25, agreed with McCaffrey on how students would react to the retreat costs.
“I would second some of the criticism of the retreat,” Mangraviti said. “I think that it would be a very hard sell with general students, that some of their student activity fee that’s supposed to benefit them is going to an exclusive UGBC-only retreat.”
Heckelman attributed the cost to rising accommodation costs and the number of students who attend the retreat.
“To have 120 folks come to the retreat and stay overnight, that’s costly,” Heckelman said. “To feed people is costly. Costs are up in life, and I think that’s something to take into account.”
Communications: $9,525 ($1,300 increase)
The proposed budget for the communications division experienced the third-largest increase among the eight divisions, rising by 15.8 percent. Despite this, it will still remain the second lowest-funded division.
Heckelman said she hopes the communications division will engage more with students, clearly conveying what UGBC is doing and how it functions.
“Something that Katie and I really wanted to do this year was expand comms and make sure that we were like meeting students where they are,” Heckelman said.
The $1,300 budget increase comes from new operational equipment and subscriptions to graphic design and marketing tools like Canva Pro, Campaign Monitor, and CapCut Pro.
“That’s cameras and other subscriptions and equipment that might be a little bit older and just need to be purchased again for the upcoming year,” Heckelman said.
Senate: $8,500 ($2,900 increase)
The Senate’s proposed budget increased by $2,900, or 51.79 percent, marking the largest percent increase across the eight divisions.
Heckelman said the main purpose of this increase is to expand Senate tabling and promote outreach.
“I think that that was warranted based on all of the initiative work that you all have done this year,” Heckelman said. “A lot of these initiatives have a price tag behind them.”
Heckelman said she hopes the additional funding will empower student senators to bring their initiative ideas to life, building on the success of programs like providing free laundry supplies for freshmen and distributing CharlieCards to cover transportation for clinicals or practicums.
“If any individual senator comes up with a project and the group decides that this is what’s good for the campus community, that’s something that we 100 percent want to empower by putting some student funds behind it,” Heckelman said.
Student Initiatives: $55,000 ($5,000 increase)
The Student Initiatives budget saw the greatest nominal increase of any division, rising $5,000—or 10 percent—with the goal of inviting more speakers to BC and boosting student engagement.
“We’ve heard demand from students, both within UGBC and outside of UGBC, that they want to see more engaging speakers on campus and to bring someone who is maybe a celebrity or a thought leader,” Heckelman said.
According to Heckelman, SI’s budget encapsulates all of the initiatives within UGBC, including partnerships with BC Athletics and the Center for Student Wellness.
Environmental Sustainability: $14,800 ($1,000 decrease)
According to Heckelman, the budget for the Environmental Sustainability division was reduced by 6.3 percent to better align with its mission of promoting environmental responsibility and stewardship.
“Being that they’re a sustainable division, they want to do that in practice,” Heckelman said. “After consulting with the director, they’re not really buying as much stuff to give away, because that’s not as sustainable. And so it made sense to decrease the budget a little bit.”
AHANA+ Leadership Council: $131,000 (No Change)
ALC received the largest budget of any division at $131,000, followed by the Executive Council with a distant $64,500.
Heckelman emphasized that events like ALC Showdown and speakers for various heritage months draw large turnarounds and are expensive to sponsor. ALC’s signature events—ALC Showdown, ALC Ball, and the ALC Speaker—account for the largest line item in UGBC’s budget, totaling $120,000.
“They face a lot of students, and they are pretty costly, when you think about all the production that goes into something like Showdown that sold out this year,” Heckelman said.
Even with the budget remaining the same, Heckelman expressed hope that UGBC can find ways to support the AHANA Caucus next year, which is set to receive $2,500 to support its programming and operations.
“How can we talk with students that are in these communities and ask them about what the needs are and facilitate collaborations between them?” Heckelman said. “When they’re wanting to do bigger events, they can use some additional financial support, and where we can provide that, we want to.”
Queer Leadership Council: $53,900 ($1,100 decrease)
QLC’s budget will see a 2 percent decrease—the largest of any UGBC division—following the removal of the Born This Way Cafe.
The Born This Way Café—a space for LGBTQ+ entertainers to perform—was cut due to declining attendance and interest, according to Heckelman, who emphasized that QLC has found greater success with other initiatives.
On the topic of reducing UGBC retreat costs, Gabriel Hallberg, associate director of QLC and MCAS ‘26, suggested that UGBC could forgo hiring external facilitators from Hale Education to organize team bonding activities at the retreat. Instead, he proposed redirecting those funds to support QLC programming.
“I would consider putting them back into the QLC budget,” Hallberg said. “You mentioned that we did not do the Born This Way Cafe this year or last year. I hope that next year, QLC is in a position to do what we intended to do this year but weren’t able to, which is transition the Born This Way Cafe as a legacy event from QLC into the [Thea Bowman AHNA and Intercultural Center].”
Heckelman agreed with Hallberg’s point about not necessarily needing outside help for the UGBC retreat and said she would consider reaching out to the Center for Student Coordination, which organizes retreats.
QLC still has the fourth largest budget due to signature events like Pride Week, a week-long event that brings together the LGBTQ+ community and encourages allies to learn more about queer life on campus and to advocate for that community of students.
Council for Students with Disabilities: $27,000 (No Change)
The proposed budget for CSD will hold steady at $27,000.
According to Heckelman, the council hopes to revive its signature event, the CSD speaker, according to Heckelman.
The CSD speaker, along with Dinner in the Dark—a meal that simulates visual impairment for attendees—comprised the largest line item in the CSD budget, amounting to $15,000.
This semester, the CSD speaker fell through at the last minute due to a logistical issue, according to Heckelman. Last year, the CSD hosted actor RJ Mitte for a talk at Robsham Theater, best known for playing Walt Jr. on AMC’s award-winning series Breaking Bad.
That’s something that has been hugely successful in the past and that we want to revitalize for next year,” Heckelman said.
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