The University of Iowa Undergraduate Student Government voted unanimously to allocate $25,000 to the Deferred Maintenance Plan, planning to use the money for student organizations’ equipment repairs.

The money is coming from the financially overloaded USG contingency fund. The Daily Iowan previously reported that the current contingency fund balance far exceeds the recommended balance of $120,000.

USG Sen. Emily Hagedorn, finance committee chair and one of the authors of the bill, said this lump sum would be placed into the account to provide organizations an easy way to get a small amount of money without having to request it through a bill in the USG Senate.

“Any property that student government buys for student [organizations] is actually owned by student government and the University of Iowa, so it’s technically part of our responsibility to ensure that they’re not in disrepair or need to be replaced,” Hagedorn said in an address to the Senate.

Hagedorn said USG previously planned to continuously fund the Deferred Maintenance Plan by increasing the student activity fee two years ago, but those plans were derailed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the state Board of Regents freezing any fee increases on students.

“This prevents those big capital expenditure bills we’ve seen on the floor,” Hagedorn said. “Since we have a little bit of surplus funds right now, we thought we’d just put some cash into the fund.”

Student Video Productions approached USG in November 2021 regarding outdated equipment. USG granted the student organization over $25,000 to upgrade outdated video equipment to keep up with the industry standard.

Hagedorn said this allocation will help address near-future issues with equipment reliability and capability.

Hagedorn said the contingency fund balance stood at $289,000 before the fund allocation was made on Tuesday.

The money placed into this fund is shared between both the Undergraduate and Graduate and Professional Student Governments.