Associated Students, Inc., unanimously approved the 2001-2002 budget at its April 18 board meeting.

After a brief discussion about the budget, ASI President Jason Bryant moved to include the Evening Child Care Proposal in the budget that had been brought to the board by Chris Miller, chair of the Parent Advisory Committee.

Miller said the “bold” and “innovative” proposal “preserves the access to education.”ASI Executive Director Carol Ackerson spoke on behalf of the proposal.

“This proposal establishes an evening program. The day program goes until 6 p.m. and the evening program will start at 6 p.m.,” Ackerson said.

Although Ackerson recommended this model to the board, she also stated that “there is some risk in implementing this model.”

The program must be 75 percent full to be successful, according to Ackerson. That means that 21 children will need to be enrolled in each evening session for this program to work. Another condition for this model to work is that all staff positions be filled.

“We feel that we have done our best to come up with a model that can work,” Ackerson said.

Bryant explained to the board that this proposal would not affect the bottom line of the budget.

After confusion among some members of the board on what was exactly going on, the 2001-2002 budget was voted on and passed.

The $7.2 million budget passed without much hesitation from members of the board. ASI is expecting a $405,000 surplus now that the budget has passed. The main source of this income will be from student fees, at $5.1 million. Other sources of income include program fees and grants.

Paul Ueckert seemed excited and happy with the outcome. He proceeded to thank the board and everyone involved in the budget process while giving his executive officer?s report.”Thank you, one more meeting and we?re done,” Ueckert said.

This budget will now go into effect on July 1, 2001 and will end on June 30, 2002.