Missouri Students Association Vice President Helena Kooi’s budget for the 2013 fiscal year has started its long approval process.

The budget was read for the first time the Wednesday before spring break at MSA senate. The Student Fee Review Committee proposed the MSA student fee revenue be increased from $77,213 to $79,794, according to the budget.

“We had a slight student fee increase because we raised a lot of the professional staff members’ salaries,” Kooi said. “So, there was a slight budget increase, but that didn’t really mean anything for any of the programs because those salaries had increased.”

The increase will not affect any MSA auxiliaries, she said. MSA added three new professional staff positions last semester before Kooi was elected.

“This budget, I had to find a way to pay for all of those positions,” she said. “So that resulted in a little budget crunch for me.”

MSA now employs a part-time lawyer for student legal services, a media coordinator position for MUTV and KCOU and a MSA/GPC Tech assistant director.

Kooi said she had less carryover to manage than MSA did last year, which led to some cuts.

“We were able to balance higher costs by making several cuts to administrative portions of the budget,” she said in an email. “For example, I eliminated six unused phone lines that will save MSA $1,000 a year.”

The MSA budget has to be seen by the senate three times. It will be read for the second time Wednesday and again in two weeks. Afterward, it has to be approved by the Committee on Student Organizations, Governments and Activities.

“I will meet with them and defend my changes, defend my budget, take any of their questions,” Kooi said.

According to the Student Government budget schedule, after SOGA approves the budget, it is finally sent to the vice chancellor. MSA hopes the budget is passed by the end of this month.