After debate at its meeting last week, the Government of the Student Body is still working on plans to alter how it funds social services organizations in Story County.

GSB — along with the city of Ames, United Way of Story County, the Story County Board of Supervisors and the state of Iowa — gives money to several social services organizations in the area through the recommendations of the Analysis of Social Services Evaluation Team.

A bill debated within the senate last week would have changed GSB bylaws, allowing it the option of funding social services agencies through ASSET or directly funding the agencies that most benefit students. The bill was withdrawn after about a half an hour of debate because the GSB senators involved with the bill only wanted to bring the subject to other senators’ attention, said GSB Treasurer Dan Becker.

“It’s crucial for them to understand what ASSET is and what our problems are with funding,” Becker said.

“We need to keep these agencies accountable to students. It’s crucial to see where our student fee money is going.”

Becker said GSB’s ultimate goal is to mirror the way the city of Ames funds social services agencies — individually contracting with the agencies to make sure they are using GSB money in a way that benefits students while remaining part of the ASSET funding board.

“It’s kind of like we want to have our cake and eat it, too,” he said. “The city is still affiliated with ASSET, which is good, so it can still use information ASSET gathers, but it can also make sure agencies can’t take their money and run. If we adopt the same system, the agencies will be more visible to us.”

It is also important for GSB to maintain some ties with ASSET because it provides a student perspective on the board, Becker said.

“Pulling out of ASSET would be detrimental — I agreed with President [Sophia] Magill when she spoke on this point at the meeting,” he said.

“We would like to make students more prominent in the community and foster student-community relations.”

It would initially create more work for GSB to set up individual contracts, Becker said, because it would have to debate and pass every contract made.

After the initial workload, however, most of the upkeep on the contracts would be done by the GSB treasurer and the four volunteers GSB has on the ASSET funding board, he said.

“Some of the most ambitious people in the senate are on board to do this,” Becker said. “The bill is something we could possibly pass in spring. Now all we have to do is get the agencies to be willing to work with us.”

Jon Shelness, undeclared graduate student, is one of the GSB volunteers on the ASSET board.

He said he would like to see social services agencies tailor some requests for GSB funding by offering more student-oriented services.

“Students themselves need to let agencies know what they need,” he said.