The Student Association recently received $20,000 worth of new computers and software. It also is still waiting for a $5,000 server.

“In the summertime, our computers were really bad,” SA Treasurer Shaun Crisler said. “A few of them were crashing every few weeks.”

So, where did the SA get $25,000?

“The money, for the most part, came from our general reserve, which is not tallied as of yet,” Crisler said.

The general reserve fund is not a specific amount right now, because transactions occur frequently, Crisler said.

“It’s not tallied, because we are still taking back money from organizations that put us into deficit last year,” he said. “The general reserve is an amount of money set aside for anything that comes up, like an emergency, or as a unique circumstance. The basic design is for us not to run into a deficit. It’s a cushion.”

Student organizations ran into $60,000 worth of debt from last year, and money from the fund was used to pay that debt.

“We’re in the process of getting the $60,000 debt back,” Crisler said. “Hopefully, by the end of the semester all things will be paid off.”

The fund was at more than $80,000 before the computer purchase. He said it’s now at more than $65,000.

Crisler’s desk now sports a new, black Pentium 4 computer.

“I actually had to bring my own monitor from home,” he said.

The need for new equipment was justified in a recommendation sheet, which listed hard drive crashes, memory problems and expired warranties, among other problems. The server the SA used to have was slow and on loan.

Even with the price tag, which was split among the 16 new computers, Crisler made sure no frills were added.

“We thought about going all out with it, but we didn’t want people downloading music or watching movies,” he said.

As for the SA’s old computers, the ones that can no longer function properly are heading to inventory, while the still-useful computers will be going to student organizations.

“We figured that our old computers would transfer to 190 [student organization] offices, for those groups that don’t have computers,” Crisler said.

Crisler informed two groups at a meeting two weeks ago that they would be receiving computers from the SA. The rest of the organizations that are getting computers will be sent a notice.

One of the groups, S.I.S.T.E.R.S., is getting one of the donated computers from the SA.

“It [the last computer] was old, with old programs,” said S.I.S.T.E.R.S. President Rayna Coleman, a senior economics major. “It wasn’t very fast, and the programs needed to be updated. It didn’t even have sound.”

The SA’s old computer will be used to create flyers, copy minutes from the organization’s meetings and help keep in contact with the group’s members. S.I.S.T.E.R.S. will be getting the computer sometime this week.

PRISM also will receive a computer from the SA.

Karen Frost, a senior communication major, was unaware that they would receive a computer, but was glad that they would.

“We have a newsletter, called the Pride Letter, and a lot of our communications are done over e-mail,” Frost said.

The rest of the equipment will be allotted according to different organizations’ needs.

Campus Editor Jeff Goluszka contributed to this report.