Senators will begin to distribute more than $828,000 among Northwestern student groups at tonight’s Associated Student Government meeting, a discussion which will likely last several hours and continue into next week’s meeting.

Last week, ASG announced budget recommendations of $828,677 to 38 student groups, after 39 student groups requested a total of $1,419,643 to fund 2006-07 expenses. Arts Alliance is the only student group that was denied funding.

This week, senators will review each student group’s recommended allocation, hear from student group leaders and consider changing the funding amount.

The senators have an extra $43,000 at their disposal if they decide to give student groups more money. In past years, spring funding was an emotional time for ASG, and heated arguments on the Senate floor were common.

SESP junior Lauren Parnell, who said she requested extra money last year on behalf of Northwestern Community Development Corps, recalled that senators also indulged in comic antics at times.

“We needed to petition for candy for Project Pumpkin,” she said. “A long-running joke with ASG is that the candy is the kids eating our money. (Student Activities Finance Board Account Executive Mark Zoff) took a huge amount of money and put it in a pre-made s’more and pretended to eat it. Senate laughed, but we got our money.”

The money comes from the Student Activities Fee, which every student pays along with tuition. The $120 annual fee will increase next year to $121.80, adding about $14,000 to the $1 million funding pool. ASG is distributing money according to next year’s amount.

This will be the final year ASG distributes money exclusively to A-status groups. Along with the fee increase next year, ASG will begin allowing B- and T-status groups to receive a small portion of the funding.

Reach Nitesh Srivastava at [email protected].