The Inter-Residence Hall Association is nearly finished with its reorganization after months of discussion regarding its bylaws and constitution.

The parliament approved a majority of its legislation pertaining to the revisions at its meeting Thursday.

“I don’t know of any other time that we’ve completely redone the bylaws,” said Phil De Koster, Barton-Lyon-Freeman-Fisher/Nickell halls president. “We totally redid ourselves and said, ‘Out with old and in with the new.'”

De Koster co-wrote every bylaw bill with Eric Aderhold, Richardson Court Association treasurer.

Changes to the constitution were finalized at an earlier meeting, leaving bylaw changes to be discussed Thursday.

The bylaws were divided into eight separate bills.

Beginning at 7 p.m., the meeting lasted for nearly six hours. The meeting became the longest most members had ever attended.

“It just took forever,” said Carl Carlson, IRHA vice president.

Much of this time was spent on the qualifications of groups requesting funds, a topic that IRHA has debated at length in recent meetings.

“We took the rules that were specified about groups that we hotly debated the week before,” De Koster said. “We set up a sort of secondary and primary funding structure.”

These funding brackets are based largely on the percentage at which IRHA will fund a requesting organization’s event, with a primary-funded organization asking for the majority of its funds from IRHA.

With finance being central to debate for much of the meeting, the parliament also discussed the amount of dues each person in the residence halls would pay to IRHA and to his or her respective hall.

“From the length of [the bylaw on dues], you would think it didn’t take very long, but we found a whole stash of problems in there,” De Koster said.

Parliament eventually decided to cap IRHA dues at $10 per year per resident. Additional fees can be assessed for the hall in which a resident lives.

“Another thing we added to the dues was that we could collect dues for the halls and houses,” De Koster said, on how IRHA was striving to simplify dues.

An exact amount for dues is scheduled to be discussed next week, where the official budget for the 2005-06 year is to be debated and voted upon.

The budget is expected to be one of the final changes to IRHA’s makeup.

“It’s sort of like an earthquake, and now there are a few aftershocks,” De Koster said.

In the reform of its representation, IRHA has decided to remove representation from the association levels.

Both RCA and the Union Drive Association are in the middle of formulating legislation to dissolve the organizations in response to the changes brought on by IRHA legislation, said Ross Kelderman, UDA president.

The changes may also affect representation to the Government of the Student Body, because GSB senators for RCA and UDA would have no governing body.

“My understanding is the GSB reps will go to IRHA meetings instead of association meetings,” Kelderman said. “There may need to be some adjustments in GSB legislation.”