Associated Student Government senators will receive fall supplemental funding recommendations for student groups and will be presented with a new system for keeping track of their work at tonight’s Senate meeting.
Twenty-eight of the 40 A-status student groups requested a total of approximately $560,000 in additional funding for activities this year, ASG Financial Vice President Carson Kuo said. But the Student Activities Finance Board tonight will present its recommendation that $256,000 go to student groups out of a possible $287,000 in fall supplemental funding.
In the spring, Senate doled out $731,696 for student group programming planned for this year. The latest round of funding provides more money for student groups looking to offer additional activities that may not have been funded last spring.
Senate will allocate the remaining $30,000 pool to student groups during the Oct. 17 meeting.
A&O Productions requested the largest amount. The group asked for $226,000 to fund two concerts and a comedian. Neil Shah, the A&O senator, said the group made multiple requests to give SAFB choices for when it makes its recommendations.
“That’s what makes the request so large,” said Shah, a Weinberg senior. “It’s all about giving them options.”
Senators also will witness the introduction of a new bill-tracking system that Executive Board members say will increase the likelihood that passed bills are actually implemented.
Large pieces of paper will hang from the walls of the Northwestern Room at Norris University Center during Senate meetings and will track the progress of bills from introduction to passage to enactment. The new system will help senators keep track of bills so that legislation does not die after being passed by Senate.
“(That) was a big problem,” ASG President Jordan Heinz said. “It’s going to be fixed. ASG needs to be held accountable for what it does.”
Senate has begun to pass more legislation dealing with issues outside of ASG in recent years. Last year, about 10 percent of the bills passed were internal legislation, which includes constitutional and bylaw amendments and changes to the roles of officers, Heinz said. During the 1998-99 year, Heinz estimated that about 60 percent of the legislation was internal.
“With external legislation, it’s hard to tangibly see what happens to every bill,” Heinz said.
The Student Services Committee recently created a subcommittee that looks into previously passed student services bills. The majority of bills investigated so far died upon Senate approval, said Courtney Brunsfeld, student services vice president.
“If a bill has been passed by Senate, it really should be implemented by student services,” said Brunsfeld, a Weinberg junior. “We don’t really care if bills get passed if we don’t do anything about them.”
The Rules Committee also will hold bills to more stringent standards this year. While the Rules Committee does not have written guidelines for judging bills, members will make more of an effort to send quality legislation to the floor, Rules Chairwoman Mandy Stilmock said.
“This year one of our goals is to make sure higher quality legislation reaches the floor, that more of the questions are answered and the holes are filled,” said Stilmock, a Weinberg junior. “We’re going to be asking all the hard questions in rules before, instead of waiting for those issues to arise in Senate and wasting all the senators’ time.”
