A referendum may be on the ballot this spring to help solve the Student Recreation Center’s budgetary woes.
On Friday, student senators began discussing how to solve the rec center’s deficit spending, and are forming a committee to work with rec center employees to look at possible solutions.
Sen. Jacqueline Justice, who created the committee, said she hopes it will have regular meetings, but none are scheduled yet.
“I feel like a conversation needs to happen that can’t happen on the Senate floor,” she said. “We only have one meeting a week and they get pretty long because we have to deal with business, special requests, everything like that, so it’s really hard for us to dig into these issues.”
The immediate concern is creating a referendum, Justice said. Getting a measure on the ballot would require gathering student signatures, a two-thirds vote of the Senate or the sponsorship of the ASUO executive.
ASUO President Jared Axelrod said he does not think it would be difficult to gather enough signatures to get a measure on the ballot.
“I’d have to see what the exact wording was and what they were trying to do with it before I’d sponsor it,” he said.
Sen. Natalie Kinsey, who attended the meeting, said she thinks the referendum is a good idea.
“I think students care about the rec center,” she said. “I feel like it’s a way to justify spending more.”
Justice said that although discussing a referendum will be the first concern of the committee, the problems are part of a long-term discussion over how to fund contracts and departments.
“In my opinion, a lot of the solution really is all tied into really examining what our fee is supposed to be used for and what exactly we’re funding,” she said. “I feel like the rec center in isolation is a problem in terms of what do we do in the short term, but in the long term, it’s part of the overall PFC (Programs Finance Committee) discussion.”
Contact the campus and federal politics reporter at [email protected]