A bill that would have covered lodging costs for Government of the Student Body members attending a conference was withdrawn at Wednesday’s GSB meeting.

Nine attendees of the Big XII Leadership Conference, which will be Oct. 14 to 16 in Lincoln, Neb., would have benefited from the bill that would have provided more than $600 to cover the cost of hotel and parking. Seven of the nine attendees are GSB members.

Each attendee’s share of the cost for two nights in the hotel would be around $67, said Henry Alliger, speaker of the senate.

Finance Director Kristi Kramer said GSB does not usually give student groups money to cover lodging costs because the group can usually absorb them.

GSB has already given conference attendees more than $1,700 to cover registration and transportation costs, said College of Engineering Senator Brandon Judas, and it would be unfair for them to ask for more money for lodging.

“It shows a lot of self-interest to do that because you probably wouldn’t do this for anyone else,” he said. Richardson Court Association Senator Jackie Armstrong said that she, as both a member of the finance committee and a conference attendee, wanted to amend the bill to pay only the $15 parking fee incurred during their stay.

“I guess going into the conference we did know we would incur personal costs,” she said.

Alliger, who is also attending the conference, said it would be “ridiculous” to ask for only $15 and moved to have the bill withdrawn. The senate then withdrew the bill.

Also at Wednesday’s meeting, a USA Today representative gave a presentation about the Gannett Readership Program.

Mary Ellen Couture, regional marketing manager for USA Today, said she would like to see the readership program begin at Iowa State in the 2005-06 school year. Before any program would begin on campus, she said, GSB could authorize USA Today to do a pilot program for four weeks, during which USA Today would monitor student interest and readership of the newspapers.

Couture said the program would cost students no more than $6 in student fees per semester.

College of Engineering Senator Leia Guccione said a readership program representative who visited last year told GSB costs would be no more than $5 per student.

“I changed the figure up to $6 because I didn’t want to mislead students,” Couture said. “At some schools, the cost has averaged out to $5.25 or $5.30 per student … this is because the number of papers picked up each day by students determines the cost of the program to students.”