Liam Flenniken

“The goal is to make decisions that are fair for the club leaders as well as equitable for the student body,” Syd Paredes said.

Amid enrollment decline, Associated Students of California Lutheran University Government has spent about 65% of its yearly budget during the fall 2025 semester. 

ASCLU Finance Director Syd Paredes, who oversees spending and allocation tracking, said the student organization began the year with “about $140,000” and spent $90,000 by late fall. Roughly 35% of the budget, about $49,000, remains.

“A lot of [the fall semester’s] portion [of funds] went to either club sports or, also, a lot of our cultural clubs hosted big events this year, like [the Latin American Student Organization]and FILO Club,” ASCLU Senate Director Jose Hernandez said. 

Hernandez said fund allocation for clubs typically occurs after the event has taken place and the club petitions for reimbursement. 

“Usually for Senate, you cannot really portion it out since clubs usually plan their own events and then they come to us for the funding after that,” Hernandez said. “We usually keep track of [the budget] every week. In our meetings, we have reports through all of the executive officers and usually Syd does the report on how much we still have available in the budget.”

Hernandez said ASCLUG’s funds come from student fees, so declining enrollment is resulting in a “suffering” budget. 

“There is not much we can do with it, and we are doing what we can,” Hernandez said.

ASCLU President Ashlyn Bryson-Beane said the yearly allocation depends on student fees, which fell this year. 

“Our budget comes from student fees, so that is why it is a little lower this year, it is because enrollment is down,” Bryson-Beane said. “I think right now our Programs Board has about $180,000, I think our Senate had about $130,000 and our Executive Board had around $30,000.”

The Programs Board spent more than $40,000, including fall carnival, drop-in events such as Dave & Buster’s and Skyzone, and Mid-Week Mingle gatherings. The Executive Board spent about $10,000, largely on its fall retreat and new T-shirts for representatives. 

“We want to serve the most amount of students,” Bryson-Beane said. “It becomes really hard when we have clubs coming in asking for really large amounts of money for like 15 people. If you are asking for $15,000 for 15 people, that is a hard one for us to allocate.” 

Bryson-Beane said the Programs Board will host a spring dance and other events, while the Senate will continue approving project proposals and distributing club funding until allocations are exhausted. 

Paredes said she communicates directly with club officers about adjustments and informs them when cuts are needed due to duplicate expenses or limited funds.

“If you had like a 300-person event like a couple of years ago, it is probably not going to match now because, you know, ebbs and flows of people, things change. The goal is to make decisions that are fair for the club leaders as well as equitable for the student body,” Paredes said.

Paredes said that funding requests are rarely final decisions, and that student government has to make decisions in the best interest of each club and the campus as a whole.

“It is not that we do not want X club to get the funding that they want, it is that we want X club to have their funding and also club Y to get some of that too,” Paredes said. “It is not never a ‘no,’ it is always a ‘I want to discuss.”