Missouri Students Association Vice President Kelsey Haberberger has until Friday to complete the first draft of the MSA budget before it is presented in front of the the Senate in March.

Since Monday, Haberberger has been working with Chris Provorse, Department of Student Life business manager, as well as various MSA departments and auxiliaries to have a rough draft of the budget completed by Feb. 21.

Haberberger said she could begin working on the rough draft only after carryover information and budget request forms from all of the auxiliaries and departments were received Feb. 14. Carryover funds, unused money from the current fiscal year that rolls into the next fiscal year, caused a [budget crisis](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/4/2/msa-budget-features-91000-cuts/) last year.

Provorse said former Vice President Zach Beattie had about the same amount of time to work on the first draft as Haberberger because the carryover and budget request information were received Feb. 15, 2013, and the first draft was due Feb. 25, 2013.

However, Beattie said he had “at least two to three weeks after budget requests came in and before the first draft was due,” as opposed to having only one week.

Beattie said the first day of the budget began when he was inaugurated as vice president.

“A lot of the times, I actually had to meet with departments multiple times,” he said. “If you meet them once and try to plug everything in, and there is a situation where you have to make a cut, you have to meet them again to explain what’s being cut and try to think of other solutions.”

Throughout the week, Haberberger has been meeting with the 12 MSA auxiliaries to discuss budget requests for each auxiliary. Although Craft Studio coordinator Kelsey Hammond will not meet with Haberberger until Friday, she has indicated she does not believe the short timeframe will have an effect on Haberberger’s ability to meet the deadline.

“I don’t think any of the (auxiliaries) are asking for anything super crazy,” Hammond said. “If I was super worried about my budget, then I probably would have tried to meet with her earlier, but I’m not that worried about it.”

Hammond said she received the budget request form about two weeks prior to the deadline of Feb. 14 and sent a completed form back to Haberberger on Feb. 13.

The other auxiliaries were not available for comment.

MSA Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Shelby Catalano said the vice president has a short period of time after being inaugurated before the budget starts. She said allowing the vice president to have more time to work on the first draft would be beneficial.

Catalano also said that allowing the Budget Committee to make recommendations to the budget would “make it a lot easier on (Haberberger) and the association, and maybe even make the auxiliaries feel less stressed.”

In a committee meeting, Haberberger said she would take recommendations from the committee after the first draft has been completed because she had already started working on the first draft before Catalano made the suggestion.

Catalano said she would suggest higher priority for funding areas that had been cut in the previous budget, such as the salary for the Board of Elections Commissioners chairman and the Department of Student Activities.

Although the first draft is in “early stages,” Haberberger said, she is confident “it’ll be ready to go by Friday.”