The Student Assembly made final amendments to the Student Association budget in a nearly eleven-hour meeting Monday night.

The meeting was the final stage in the process of allocating the $2.3 million budget of the SA. The money for the SA budget comes entirely from the activity fee that all undergraduate students pay. Students voted in a campus-wide election before spring break to increase the fee to $92.50 from last year’s level of $86.50.

Student representatives approved the budget and the changes made on the floor of the Assembly with a vote of 16 for and 12 against. There were two abstentions.

Assembly chair Elahd Bar-Shai attributed the length of the meeting to a change in the budget hearing procedures.

This year every Assembly representative was guaranteed one motion, a decision that was made in response to events last year that left all but one representative without the opportunity to amend the budget.

“We ended up overcompensating – significantly,” Bar-Shai said. “We didn’t think it would end up like this.”

He said that something will be done next year to reduce the length of the meeting.

Changes to budget allocations included an increase of $10,000 to the SA Programming Board budget. Several student groups saw increases in their budget of $1,000 or more, but budget allocations to student groups on the whole decreased by nearly $40,000.

A number of groups, including New York Public Interest Research Group, Tomorrow’s Hope in North Korea and the Food Co-op were subject to budget reductions.

The Assembly also passed a reduction of one cent to each of the stipends of the SA executive board members.

Kathryn Howard, an Assembly representative for Mountainview Community, proposed an increase of $34,000 to the SAPB budget so that the board could attract bigger name acts to BU.

Aaron Cohn, the vice president for Programming and the VPP elect, said a larger budget would allow the SAPB to bring the more popular entertainers to campus by outbidding other schools.

“It’s a game, a competition,” Cohn said. “We have the capacity to bring the big acts to campus.”

Though Howard’s motion to increase the budget by $34,000 failed, the Assembly did approve an increase of $10,000. The 18 to 13 vote brought the total SAPB budget to about $254,882.

The $10,000 increase was on top of a $3 per student increase that was approved earlier this semester in a referendum. The increase was also the largest reallocation of the student activity fee to any specific student group or organization.

The Speech and Debate team also saw an additional increase of $3,000, which brought its total budget to $22,000.

Other groups saw their budgets increase for the 2010-11 academic year as well. The BU Explorchestra, a newly-founded group that performs students’ orchestral compositions, received a total of $1,000. The Assembly granted the Harpeggios, the all-female a capella group, an additional $100 to help them finance the recording of a new album, bringing their total budget to $1,100. The Binghamton SnoCats, a snowboard and ski club, received a $1,000 increase to their budget, bringing their total to $1,500.

Rainbow Pride Union had an increase of $1,000, which brought the group’s total budget to $11,000.

Jeremy Goldstein, a representative for College-in-the-Woods, motioned to reduce the stipends of the Student Association executive board members to $3,000 each.

Under the proposed budget, each SA E-Board member would have made $4,000 per year.

But Goldstein, who had the first motion, said the money would be “better spent directly on student groups.”

The Assembly, however, voted to limit the reduction to six cents – one cent per executive board member – setting SA E-Board stipends at $3,999.99 each.

The Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program (JUMP Nation) suffered the largest cut of the night. Their budget was decreased from $13,000 by $5,000, leaving it at $8,000.

The Binghamton chapter of NYPIRG was one of six groups facing a 100 percent cut in their budget, but Jillian Burg, BU’s NYPIRG chapter president, attended the meeting to advocate against the cut.

“It’s a really good opportunity that affects really good policy that affects students,” Burg said of the group. “We’re constantly lobbying for lower tuition, financial aid, as well as environmental policies, protection policies and some community service.”

NYPIRG retained most of their funding, but they did receive a $50 cut over their 2009-10 budget of $200.

The meeting lasted beyond the time of publication. Extended coverage will follow.

— Mayesha Quasem contributed to this report.