Simplifying student allocations to be discussed

Dan Slatterly

A bill to simplify the bylaws for account allocations for the next fiscal year will be up for debate at Wednesday’s Government of the Student Body meeting.

“We have done some money moving in the past year or so and I don’t think those bylaws are up-to-date anymore,” said Kyle Krause, Frederiksen Court senator and author of the bill.

The bill would examine every GSB account and specify the amount of money in the account, said Henry Alliger, speaker of the senate.

Now, the bylaw only lists the accounts in which GSB has money and does not list the balance, he said.

Krause said the bill would also include inactive accounts that money is rarely transferred to or from.

Alliger said this bill is not necessary because the information it would provide is readily available to senators through the finance director.

He said it would be hard to stay up-to-date because some of the accounts change daily and some of them never change.

Introduction of seven senate bills, including the recommendations for the allocation of student fees, are also on the agenda for the meeting.

Alliger said the allocations bill includes the recommendations from the finance committee on how to allocate student activity fees to different student organizations.

Jason Carroll, vice chairman of the finance committee, said this bill is the precursor to the introduction of the “Account Allocations for the Next Fiscal Year” bill, commonly referred to as the “Big Picture Bill,” which is the complete allocations bill. It will be introduced at the March 23 meeting.

Carroll said student organizations have been presenting budget proposals to the finance committee. On Monday the finance committee met for about seven hours to balance the budget, he said.

Allocations to student organizations were cut because the budget was about $75,000 too high, Carroll said.

He said representatives from all the clubs and organizations included in the proposal should be present at the March 23 meeting in case senators have questions while debating the bill.

The GSB meeting will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.