This year’s Student Association senate expects to finish their student budgets almost a month before last year’s senate started, said the SA’s treasurer.

By this time last year, no budget requests from student organizations had been considered by the senate. But this year, SA records show that the senate has already looked at 29 budgets.

The budgets are being looked at earlier because they are going straight from the finance committee to the senate meetings instead of getting put off until late in the year, Treasurer Mike Holy said.

“It is a continued process,” he said. “A budget will get through finance and to (the) senate in a week process.

“One of my pledges (was) to get these budgets through so there is no problem with quorum or anything,” Holy said of the tendency for senators to skip meetings at year’s end.

Last year, under the direction of former Treasurer Bruce Williams, The Northern Star records show that the senate held off the budgets until April.

In the last four meetings of that spring semester, 42 budgets were approved. The last meeting of the semester lasted six hours.

Williams said he waited until the end of the year to make sure, after all the budgets were scrutinized, that enough money was available.

He also said the exact amount of money the SA gets is not known until late in the school year, and holding off the budgets would be safer.

“You have that added information,” he said.

Williams said approving budgets in the middle of the year could put the SA at risk of running out of money. “But I could see how this (Holy’s system) would work,” he said.

At most, 20 budgets still need to be considered, and Holy said the senate should be done with all of them before the middle of March.

Holy said approving budgets earlier also allows the senate to send it back to the finance committee if they have a problem.

“This year it gives us a lot more flexibility,” he said.

Holy also said he has been “pretty blessed with all of the organizations coming up on schedule.” The extra budget workshop held at the beginning of the year might have helped, he said.

Senate Speaker Preston Came, a finance committee member this year and last year, said Holy’s system has worked.

“The system this year is a lot better,” he said.