The Government of the Student Body passed a bill Wednesday to allocate money to groups for capital items that were cut during regular allocations.

At the meeting, the Even More Infamous Chamberlin Bill was passed, allocating $45,936.49 to student groups. The bill was made in response to the decision to cut all captial items in regular allocations. Under the bill, the capital items that were cut will be funded from the Capital Projects Account.

GSB Speaker and senior in chemical engineering Jonathan Richardson said there were a few times the senate was too concerned about the details in the debate last night, but the discussion went well.

“Overall the discussion was pretty good,” he said.

Senator and GSB president-elect Brian Phillips, junior in political science, expressed concern about making the bill a regular procedure.

“I voted for the bill; I like the bill, it’s a good bill,” he said. “I just don’t want to get into the habit of doing it every year.”

Phillips said GSB was lucky to be able to use the Capital Projects Account in this way this year, but it is not guaranteed every year.

“Down the line, that may not be the case,” he said.

Phillips said another reason he was concerned about the bill was because many people in senate do not know much about the financial process and all items that are funded must be looked at carefully.

“The last thing that I want is for senate to be a rubber stamp for finance committee,” he said.

Phillips said it would be important to educate the senate about the financial procedures, something that will be a focus for senate training this year. Even when Phillips became a part of GSB senate, he did not know about the financial procedures, something he said he regrets. He said it would also be important to make sure people are educated about the process before regular and special allocations.

Richardson said this kind of thing has been done in the past, but it has not been a regular occurrence.

“It’s definitely not unprecedented,” he said.

Richardson was glad to see the bill pass, but said it would be a problem if GSB did this kind of thing every year. He said, the this year’s capital request was the largest ever for regular allocations, so it would not need to be done every year, and would not be a problem if GSB did it every few years.

“That request is not going to be seen every year,” he said.

GSB Treasurer and senior in accounting Ryan Myers said this type of procedure is not a normal occurrence. The reason it was used this year was because there was so much money requested; if capital items had not been cut for all groups, there would have been more cuts in different areas for all of the groups, he said.

“It’s not something that has or should be done on a regular basis,” he said.

Since these capital items can be funded from the Capital Projects Account, the Finance Committee came up with this solution.

With the large amount of money that was requested and the large amount in the Capital Projects Account, Myers said this procedure was appropriate for this year but shouldn’t be made a habit.

“It’s not a good approach to regulars,” he said.

Richardson said there was concern last night about senators protecting the student fees from this year. However, he said the money from the Capital Projects Account is actually leftover money from previous years.