With minimal opposition, ASUO Senate approved $15,156 worth of spending from its surplus account to five groups, affording University’s Women’s Water Polo money to compete at a national tournament and a large campus performance event celebrating the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Ally community.
That request, from the ASUO Women’s Center and the last of the evening, granted $5,000 to support the event with a unanimous vote.
The club sport’s request faced a heavy dose of scrutiny because of its amount, but University debate coach Sen. Tom Schally said the request was actually rather frugal considering travel and hotel costs.
“As someone who schedules these kinds of things regularly, this is a pretty airtight budget,” Schally said.
That request was approved with 10 votes in favor and four opposed.
A request from Dance Oregon, a student-run organization working in conjunction with the University’s Department of Dance, wanted to move $1,198 from a past event to a line item intended to pay for campus dance concerts and research grants. Though many senators were in support of the money going to concerts, several said they did not want to pay for what they viewed as scholarships with money from the incidental fee.
The request was tabled for a week, giving the group time to come back with an itemized budget.
Similarly, International Student Association had extra money in line items from past events, and requested that the money go to account for budget shortfalls from last week’s International Week and International Night. After a short clarification of the numbers and how money was transferring, the request was unanimously approved.
Safe Ride, an assault prevention transportation service for students, was also unanimously approved to transfer $1,339 from maintenance costs to gasoline. A second request for $600 from surplus for gasoline was also unanimously approved.
The Men’s Center and Association of Happy Atheists were approved to receive $2,105 in surplus money.
With four weeks left in the current Senate term before newly elected senators take over, approximately $50,000 remains in the pool that the Senate is allowed to allocate to groups.
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