Membership in the Government of the Student Body cabinet has grown significantly with a new administration, causing some to wonder at the effectiveness and fiscal consequences of a growing GSB body separate from the senate.

According to GSB’s Web site, 17 people serve on the cabinet, but that number will increase as more positions are added. Earlier this year, the senate approved five new cabinet positions, though not all senators believe these positions will be beneficial.

“We saw a couple of areas where we wanted to see people focused on an issue,” GSB Vice President William Rock said. “The biggest one being outreach to student organizations.”

Rock said the new positions will change the way GSB does business.

“Hopefully, it will make us more visible on campus,” Rock said. “Also making us more effective since one person won’t be doing three things at once.”

Tony Borich, College of Design senator, said he is unsure about the new cabinet positions.

“It’s good to have people that are interested in helping out other students, but I’m not sure how much they are going to accomplish though,” Borich said. “It’s always hard to have students help students because they are just as busy as everyone else.”

Jennifer Eggleston, off-campus government senator, said she is sure whatever cabinet positions have been added are something GSB President Sophia Magill and Rock have seen a need for.

“I think it’s a good thing because it breaks up the responsibility a lot from past cabinet members,” Eggleston said. “They’ll be able to look into issues deeper now that there are more cabinet positions.”

Jared Bartel, director of ISU Ambassadors, now holds the cabinet position as deputy director of government relations, a position Rock said was created out of necessity.

“ISU Ambassadors is the biggest thing GSB has done in the past few years,” Rock said. “Now that Jared has a cabinet position, we can improve communication among everybody.”

Before Bartel accepted his cabinet position, he did not have the ability to attend the GSB cabinet meetings to discuss business about ISU Ambassadors.

Rock said GSB cabinet members prefer to have their meetings closed because it is a time to sit down and discuss what everyone is working on.

Bartel said his new cabinet position will help with some of GSB’s efficiency and better communication.

“It’s a good step, because now I can communicate to them directly and they can communicate to me,” Bartel said. “Our goal is to make things more efficient.”

Magill said the impact of the new cabinet positions is yet to be seen.

“With any new position you have to allow time to see the impact,” Magill said. “The potential impact is for better communication and better interaction with the student body.”

Magill said GSB is trying to make the government body more student-centered.

“We want to focus our views and center them more on students,” Magill said. “You as a student are in charge of me, and I’m here to best represent your viewpoints and ideas.”

“It will be cost-effective because we are utilizing our resources,” she said.

Rock said cabinet members are usually volunteer positions, but occasionally at the end of the year, if administrations have money left over, some of it is spread out evenly among the cabinet members.

David Boike, the 2003-2004 GSB finance director, said the year before he took office a decision was made to give cabinet members a small monetary bonus for their work on the cabinet.

Boike said at the end of the year, the administration under the 2002-2003 budget had money left over so they made the decision to give some of it to the cabinet members.

The year Boike took office, he said, he voted against paying the cabinet members and eventually had the policy taken out of the budget.

“Cabinet positions are there to do good work for the university,” Boike said. “They should do it because they are passionate about their work and want to help the university.”

“The nomination process is simple,” Rock said. “In the spring we put out applications for cabinet positions we feel we need.”

Rock said candidates submit a resume and a plan or project they would like to work on.

“This past spring we saw suggestions from applicants that we had never thought of,” Rock said. “So we created new cabinet positions to fit those needs.”

There is no real limitation to how many cabinet positions they can create, Rock said.