Members of the Government of the Student Body have accused the ISU solar car team of misrepresenting their financial situation in order to have a funding bill considered.

At Wednesday’s GSB meeting, 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 — $20,000 to help purchase supplies for this year’s project.

Jeremy Schweitzer, at-large member of the GSB finance committee, said Team PrISUm representatives who came before the committee said they were funded through the ISU Foundation, but GSB Finance Director Kristi Kramer found the team is given $10,000 a year through the College of Engineering.

“If we had known that, we probably would have held this bill,” Schweitzer said.

Justin Steinlage, the president of Team PrISUm, said he didn’t intend to misrepresent the group’s funding sources.

“I said, ‘As far as I know, this is what happened, this is what I’ve been told,'” he said. “After the meeting, I went out and found out stuff for myself. … I didn’t contact them again because I knew it would have to be dealt with in the senate. They had sent the bill on already.”

Steinlage said his group will ask for funding again during GSB’s regular allocation process in the spring.

Jason Carroll, vice chairman of the finance committee, said GSB bylaws prohibit groups that receive money from one or more academic departments from also receiving GSB funding.

“A department gets funding from a college — it’s all the same chunk of money from the same source,” he said. “If PrISUm didn’t get funding from the College of Engineering, they would be eligible for GSB funds.”

But College of Engineering Senator Brandon Judas said the bylaw is open to interpretation.

“A college is different from academic departments,” he said. “When we debated this last year, at that time, we didn’t put college in there for that reason.”

Rock’s ruling withdrew the bill from senate consideration, and a vote to overturn Rock’s decision failed 17-14.

Although Team PrISUm has received GSB funds in the past, this was not the first time the group 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.

The bill would have given PrISUm $13,800 to buy 460 lithium polymer batteries, but then-GSB president Mike Banasiak did not sign the bill before the session expired — effectively vetoing it.

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.