In a finance committee meeting Monday night, members of Student Congress passed a bill to allocate $25,000 to SafeWalk, the Student Government initiative that promotes safety for UNC students. Before Monday, the program had owed about $20,000 to Student Congress.
Finance committee chairman Josh Aristy said it was important to offer financial help to the program for it to become more economically sustainable.
“We really do care about SafeWalk, so we want to make sure that they can survive in the best way possible,” Aristy said.
The money comes from the Student Government reversions balance, which includes any funds allotted to student groups that went unspent by the end of the academic year. Student Body Treasurer Brittany Best said it’s not uncommon to end up with a lot left in the reversions balance.
“At the end of the year there will be some money that hasn’t been spent, and all that reverts back on the last day of the fiscal year,” she said. “We have $116,000 in reversions, which is a high number.”
Ryan Darge, SafeWalk’s program and finance director, said he is confident that the more sustainable economic plan for SafeWalk will prevent future debt.
“I don’t think we’ll reach a point ever again where there’s a deficit because the plan that we’ve put in place over the past few weeks will counteract that,” he said.
Best said the student safety and security committee’s organizational issues have caused confusion about who’s responsible for funding SafeWalk.
