Oakland University’s Student Congress had its first reading of the proposed winter 2011 budget during its meeting Monday afternoon.

The total amount of available funds for OUSC’s winter 2011 term is $101,000, due to a projected student activity fee transfer of $71,000 and a carryover of funds from fall 2010. The proposed budget totals $99,590 leaving $1,410 to be used for discretionary reasons.

Christina Quigley, OUSC administrative assistant, said some of her planned budget will go toward a winter 2011 open house event. “We discussed planning an open house through the SPB and OUSC offices, where students could come through and get to know the people that work there, what’s going on and more about us,” Quigley said.

Public Relations Agent Jackie Puuri said $2,000 of her budget would go towards T-shirts that would be given away at the open house. Puuri said other planned giveaways for the winter semester include notepads, pencils, highlighters, ice scrapers and gift bags.

Student Services Director Brett McIsaac said he plans to bring back the student of the month promotion now that construction on the P-2 lot is complete. McIsaac also plans to bring back the Grizz Art program and hold a disc golf charity event. He said OUSC held a successful disc golf event last year.

“They actually, on a horrible day, made a lot of money and donated it to a really good cause,” McIsaac said. “I think since student congress donated half the money to get the disc golf course, we might as well use it for an event.”

OUSC has included $2,500 for scantrons in its budget, which is the same as it was for fall 2010. Student Body President Brandon Gustafson said the scantrons will be available in the library and at the Oakland Center’s welcome desk, but not in the OUSC office.

“We still pay for them, and then we basically get them out of the Student Congress office,” Gustafson said. “They’ll do a better job of restructuring and limiting how many they have.”

Gustafson said part of the reason behind moving the scantrons out of the OUSC office is to promote other services on campus, such as the charging station at the OC welcome desk.

“It’s a win-win-win,” Gustafson said. “We get to promote other services that aren’t highly used such as the charging station. We get to help promote the library with the café and hopefully the new reading section. Also, we get to provide students with the scantrons, and we get to recreate our image as more than just giving out free scantrons.”

The final budget will be voted on at OUSC’s Nov. 29 meeting.