AUSA Senate President Chris Adams announced at last week’s meeting that he expects the Board of Trustees will approve the revised Senate constitution.
The new constitution will include a new appeal process for student organizations that have had their accounts frozen, increased funding for the Student Media Board and a financial management account.
Adams said that prior to the revisions there was not process for student organizations to use in an appeals process written into the constitution. Now, if an account is frozen, the organization must submit a written report to the Finance Committee to appeal the decision. Then, if the committee reverses the freezing, the Senate will vote whethet to unfreeze the organization’s account.
Organizations will have ample time to appeal Senate’s decision to freeze an account though. Adams said that under the constitution will be that the finance committee will not take away the organization’s funding after freezing for 10 weeks.
An organization can risk having its account frozen under the new constitution if it does not adhere to the Senate’s regulation to send a representative to one Senate meeting once a quarter. Chair of the Finance Committee Amber Kirchenslager is currently working on a plan to freeze an organization’s account if the organization does not send a representative, Adams said.
Student Media Board will also receive an increased amount of 10 percent from the student activity fee. The chair of SMB will also sit on the Executive Board as a non-voting member. The new funding for SMB will take affect this year.
The Senate will also implement a new financial management account. Adams explained that the Senate would put three percent of the year’s monies into a “rainy-day trust fund.”
This way there will “always have an account that has $20,000 in it” for funding if any organization needs emergency funding.
The biggest change was that items were rearranged in the constitution.
Adams said, “A lot of things were vague, especially when it came to financial matters.”
Adams explained the Senate moved the actual numbers involved with financial matters to a bylaw document.
Adams met with the Student Affairs Subcommittee for the Board of Trustees, chaired by Pat Hamill, which approved of the revisions. Next, the constitution will be submitted to the university attorney before being passed onto the Board of Trustees. Adams expects the board to vote to accept the constitution in April.
Senator Steve Forbes announced that he was continuing to work with Corp. Robert Meeks with expanding the SafeRide for four hours every night. Forbes said the cost of a two-week trial period has been estimated at $1,200. Campus Safety wants the Senate to pay for the trial entirely, but senators expressed their desire to reach a compromise with Campus Safety to split or reduce the cost.
The Senate also voted to move today’s meeting to Nelson Private Dinning room in Nelson Hall because of a scheduling conflict with the Department of Residence that wanted to use Driscoll 1864 for an event during the Senate’s meeting time at 6:30 p.m.
