Senate allocated an addition $50,000 to the existing Bullstock budget. ORACLE FILE PHOTO

The Student Government (SG) Senate voted almost unanimously Tuesday to give the Center for Student Involvement (CSI) an additional $50,000 to fund its music festival-style event Bullstock.

With a vote of 38 yes and two no, the additional money will bring the total budget for Bullstock to $173,867. Of this total, $98,437 came from money that was already allocated in CSI’s yearly budget and $25,430 came from the department’s concert auxiliary funds.

The money that is used to budget CSI and many of their events comes directly from student tuition in the form of Activity and Service fees.

Much of the auxiliary money mentioned is coming from leftover funds from Homecoming, according to comments Monica Miranda, director of CSI, made Tuesday at the Senate meeting.

“The lower the budget we have for the artist, the less people will know who they are, the less people will want to come,” Miranda said.

CSI estimates that about 3,000 people will be in attendance with the approved budget.

During the discussion period in which senators voice their opinions prior to voting on the request, most seemed to support CSI’s request.

“I think CSI should have this,” Sen. Ryan Prieto said. “I think CSI should get more of this because the funds are already set aside. Might as well use them for students.”

According to Sen. Salud Martinez, chair of the Finance Committee, there is currently an account with about $250,000 remaining in it that is specifically for departments that took large cuts to their programming budgets during the budget allocation process last year, like CSI. These departments can request money as CSI did to supplement the budgets of various events.

Last week, CSI presented to the Finance Committee with three tiers of funding options, the top being about $100,000 and the bottom being $50,000. The committee chose the bottom option, allowing the request to be voted on by the entire Senate.

On Tuesday, Senate could have chosen between granting the $50,000 or nothing.

“They (members of the Finance Committee) were worrisome that if they allocated more than the $50,000 that then we wouldn’t have enough money next year for funding in the next fiscal year cycle which would start July 1,” Martinez said at Senate. “That was kind of a concern … A lot of finance committee members saw this more so as a luxury than a necessity.”

The newly approved budget will allow CSI to book one artist that will cost about $50,000 or less (All Time Low, AWOLNATION, LANY) one at $20,000 or less (Alice Merton, The Wombats, Clean Bandit) and one $10,000 or less (Chase Atlantic, Night Riots, Grandson). All of these artists are just examples, however, nothing is set in stone.

CSI will be sending out surveys on Thursday to determine what artists students would like to see the most.

This budget will also allow CSI to bring three “novelty items” that are all $5,000 or less. Some examples of these are bumper cars, The Cyclone ride and a zip line.

There will be no fireworks at the end of the show with this budget or with any of the previously considered budget options.

During her presentation at Senate, Miranda said the $173,867 budget is $72,400 less than what last year’s budget was, a 31 percent reduction.

Even considering this, Miranda said she pleased to see Senate showing support in allocating what they could.

“I feel encouraged by the support that was clearly coming from Senate,” Miranda told The Oracle on Wednesday.