By Dan Fletcher
Associated Student Government senators will meet early and leave late for tonight’s meeting. The Senate meeting will convene at 6 p.m. – an hour earlier than usual – and will last for several hours as senators discuss and refine the fall supplemental funding recommendations.
Last Wednesday, the Student Activities Finance Board presented its recommendations to the Senate, allocating $190,109 in funding to 21 student organizations.
Senators and student group leaders will have their first opportunity to alter the recommendations tonight. Senators can add or subtract from any organization’s allotment and have the benefit of a $10,008 pool set aside by SAFB for this purpose.
Senators will consider each group’s funding in a random, predetermined order.
“First we have a cut round,” said Speaker of the Senate Jonathan Webber, a SESP junior. “We ask if anyone has a motion to cut from a group’s funding, and if someone does, we debate it and vote.”
If money is cut from one group, it is added to the Senate’s funding pool. After the cut round is complete, senators continue into an add round, with the option to allocate additional funds from the pool to an organization’s total. Groups are considered in the same predetermined order as used in the round of cuts.
If senators finish the round of additions with money remaining in the pool, funding is complete. If there is a deficit, senators proceed with another cut round to balance the discrepancy.
Fall supplemental funding is only open to A-status student groups. Senators allot most funding in spring, making the fall cycle much smaller.
Late Tuesday, the Rules Committee was considering a measure that might become new business tonight. The measure expresses displeasure that the ASG, the Residential College Board and the Residence Housing Association were not properly consulted during the NU administrations recent assessment of campus security. It also calls on ASG to create a HereAndNow poll to measure student opinion about the security changes.
The poll asks students in particular to comment on the administration’s proposal to alarm side doors in student residence halls. The proposed resolution says this makes those doors effectively unusable to students.
The proposal comes on the heels of Senate unanimously passing a bill last week to create a committee to study ways to measure student opinion. That committee is still forming and would not have control over this newest poll.
