Updated at 2:25 a.m. CST

The ISU solar car team has once again been refused funding by the Government of the Student Body.

GSB Vice President Will Rock ruled a bill out of order that would have provided Team PrISUm — a student group that designs, builds and races solar cars — with $20,000 to help it purchase materials for this year’s project. Rock’s ruling withdrew the bill from senate consideration after Jeremy Schweitzer, at-large member of the GSB finance committee, said representatives of Team PrISUm had misrepresented their financial situation to the finance committee.

“When the group came before the finance committee, they told us that they had funds coming through the ISU Foundation, but that clearly is not the case,” Schweitzer said. “Their funds are coming through the College of Engineering, and if we had known that, we probably would have held this bill.”

Justin Steinlage, president of Team PrISUm, said he didn’t intend to misrepresent how his group received their funding. Steinlage said he found after meeting with the finance committee that the group had funding coming directly from the college.

“If I had known at that time that our funds were coming directly from the college, I would have told you,” he said. “But as it stands, there’s absolutely nothing in the bylaws that says we can’t receive funding.”

Debate on whether to fund the group centered on the ambiguity of GSB’s bylaws regarding funding for pre-professional organizations. According to the bylaws, any group will be considered a pre-professional organization, and therefore ineligible for funding, if it receives funds or is sponsored by one or more academic departments.

Speaker of the Senate Henry Alliger said last year the senate had debated for over an hour if — since a college consists of academic departments — that means college funds are also departmental funds. He didn’t support funding on those grounds, he said.

“We debated putting colleges in that line, but decided it was redundant because they are clearly made up of multiple departments,” Alliger said.

College of Engineering Senator Alan Johnson said he had spoken with Dean of Students Pete Englin on the subject, and Englin said colleges and academic departments are two separate entities. Since Team PrISUm was being funded directly from a college, Johnson said, they should be eligible for funding.

“Regardless of their interpretation, we can’t guess the meaning of the bylaws,” Johnson said. “It clearly doesn’t say colleges.”

A vote to overturn Rock’s decision failed 12-18.

This was not the first time Team PrISUm has experienced troubles with GSB funding. Last March, the team was zero-funded during GSB’s regular allocations process. The team later submitted another bill for funding, which the senate passed.

This bill would have given PrISUm $13,800 to buy 460 lithium polymer batteries, but former GSB president Mike Banasiak did not sign the bill before the session expired — giving it a pocket veto.

Usually, after 10 days, all bills become law even without the president’s signature, but, since Team PrISUm’s funding bill was passed toward the end of the session, the session expired before those 10 days had passed.