“The Vander Velden, Knight Compromise: Protecting Student Fee Money” was not passed at the Wednesday, April 3, 2013, Government of Student Body Senate meeting.

The intent of this bill was to add to the GSB bylaws a clause that would not allow for-profit organizations to be funded by GSB.

The clause read, “the organization not be a for-profit organization or partake in for-profit ventures, excluding fundraisers.”

Sen. David Pedersen, junior in accounting, proposed an amendment to clarify the meaning of “for-profit.” The proposed amendment read, “the organization that monetarily benefits its members or partake in ventures that monetarily benefits its members, excluding fundraisers.”

The amendment initially passed, then was reconsidered and failed.

Some senators felt that since this issue had never been encountered that writing legislation like this was not necessary.

“If your intent is to make money instead of to support different charities, put on shows for the Ames community or support a student newspaper, then you are a for-profit organization that shouldn’t be funded by student fee money.” said Jared Knight, GSB president and senior in political science. 

“You don’t make rules to solve a problem; you make rules to prevent problems. This is about from preventing future student fee dollars to help organizations make money.”

Other senators felt that without clarification of what “for-profit” meant, there was too much gray area and groups that are currently funded by GSB would be at risk in the future to not be funded depending on how future GSB Senates would interpret the bill.

“I feel like we’re in an area where we’re not quite sure where this is going to go,” said Sen. Dan Rediske, senior in computer science.

“You don’t want to make mistakes in the finance bylaws. I hadn’t heard of any situation that this would apply. I think that this is something we should probably abandon for the time being.”

GSB Speaker of the Senate Gage Kensler, senior in political science, thought the vagueness of the language was not an issue. 

“If the only concern you have against this is because it’s vague, then you’ve never been around GSB finances, because they’re usually is pretty vague,”  Kensler said. “That’s why we have a finance committee. 

“I don’t think GSB has to define every term we use; if we did the bylaws would be a lot longer. The worst thing that can happen if this passes is a group has to ask GSB what ‘for-profit’ means.” 

Sen. Kyle Henry, senior in psychology, looked up the meaning of “for-profit” during the senate meeting. 

“I think there is a solid definition of for-profit, and because ‘excludes fundraisers’ is in there,” Henry said, “I think that we should pass it as the wording is now and that we be prepared to handle a situation like this rather than as we encounter it.”

After comments and questions there were still concerns from many about the language of the bill.

GSB Finance Director Arjay Vander Velden, senior in computer engineering, encouraged discussion of the bill, even if it did not pass because of its importance.

The bill needed a two-thirds vote to pass, and failed on a vote of 5-25-0.

GSB Senate also discussed several other bills at Wednesday night’s meeting. Regular Allocation recommendations for KURE, Funding Republic of Hope and Funding for Men’s Rugby were among the bills that passed.