GSB Senate overrides Knight’s veto; makes changes to transparency bill
Photo: Blake Lanser/Iowa State D
President Jared Knight addresses questions from the senators in regards to the bills at hand. One bill brought up for discussion was no longer requiring ISU students to pay the 19.7 percent tuition set aside.
January 30, 2013
The Government of the Student Body Senate overrode President Jared Knight’s veto of the bill “Making GSB Accountable and Transparent” at the meeting Jan. 30. Immediately following the decision, the senate made changes to the bill and passed the amended version.
At the beginning of the meeting, GSB Secretary and Webmaster Jordan Krohn voiced his concerns with the bill and how he was not able to meet all the criteria stated in the bill by himself.
“This isn’t a one-man job; I can’t do this all by myself,” Krohn said. “If I could get a little help from the senate, it would make the position of webmaster more effective.”
When it came time to discuss the veto, there was a disagreement between Knight and Sen. Barry Snell about whether Krohn had been consulted prior to the first read of the bill during the fall semester.
Knight had stated Krohn was not contacted about the bill until after its first read, while Snell said Krohn had agreed with the content in the original bill.
The senate voted to override the veto 22-3-4 following further discussion of the bill and potential changes.
Senators put most of the emphasis on the video portion of the bill. “Minutes are not a precision document of what exactly happened. A video is,” Snell said. “It allows people to judge for themselves about what is happening.”
In the original bill, the GSB webmaster had up to 48 hours to post videos of the senate meetings. They decided this was not enough time to develop the website and update its content, extending the deadline to seven days.
Along with video, the webmaster has a week to update other content, such as minutes, legislation and attendance.
GSB also passed a resolution supporting the removal of the tuition set aside from in-state student tuition costs.
Currently 19.7 percent of in-state students’ tuition goes toward ISU scholarships.
Sen. David Pedersen said with the removal of this tuition set-aside, each in-state student would save approximately $6,000 if they attend school at Iowa State for four years.
The Iowa Board of Regents has approved the removal of the set-aside if the Iowa Legislation is able to supplement the program. The proposed amount to supplement this program would be $39.5 million.
