The ISU solar car team has returned to ask for funding from the Government of the Student Body after the pocket veto of its bill last semester.

Team PrISUm, a student group that designs, builds and races solar-powered cars, is requesting $20,000 from GSB to help pay for a motor, controller, solar array and batteries for this year’s project.

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 — essentially 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.

Kate Muhlbauer, assistant project director and treasurer of the team, said the solar car project cost about $750,000 last year.

A major issue with Team PrISUm that has come up within GSB during allocations processes is how the group receives funding and who that funding is from.

The team usually receives about $10,000 per year from the College of Engineering plus numerous donations through the ISU Foundation, Muhlbauer said. She said her group had recently been told by the college that all money going into their accounts would be coming through the Foundation.

“In the GSB bylaws, it says they don’t fund groups funded by any college councils or academic departments, but we’ve been funded by the complete college as a whole,” she said. “Now, our money just goes through the Foundation.”

Finance committee member Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen said the purpose of that rule was to keep GSB from funding or seemingly “endorsing” one college over another.

Jeremy Schweitzer, at-large member of the finance committee, said he wanted to know more about why the college switched the team’s funding.

“We could potentially have a flood of groups coming to us who weren’t eligible before because of this if we decide to fund,” he said. “We need to figure out how to fix the potential loophole that could be created if we do end up funding them.”

Muhlbauer said the team didn’t purposely wait until the last meeting at which bills can be introduced to renew its case for funds.

“It’s probably just taken a while to get everything together,” she said.