With the excitement budget season and elections over, Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting reflected a similar lull in activity.
Not a single dollar was spent from the Senate’s surplus account, and the meeting did not host a discussion about any campus issues.
The Senate did, however, welcome newly elected Sens. Katherine DuPont, Lindy Mabuya, Jeremy Hedlund and Ben Bowman. And the five current members who were elected to continue serving were all present.
The Men’s Center made a request of surplus to pay for T-shirts for an upcoming event to promote their “Break the Cycle 5K” event — a 5 km “walk/roll/run” that the Men’s Center puts on to raise awareness about cyclical family violence. However, senators said they did not want to use ASUO funding to pay for T-shirts, either in general — in the case of Sen. Evan Thomas — or if the shirts would only be available to event participants, as Sen. Kerry Snodgrass contended. The $2,040 request was tabled until next week.
The Survival Center also filled out a request to return money to surplus. The Senate had previously given the group $8,500 to book Naomi Klein to speak on campus, but the group was unable to reserve the speaker. The Senate unanimously approved this request. 
A representative from the Saudi Student Association appeared later in the meeting, requesting to transfer $1,172 within the group from one group of line items to another. Sen. Laura Hinman worked with the group earlier this year on the budgeting process and said that although she would usually oppose such transfers — and instead encourage groups to better plan events ahead of time — the request was understandable because the SSA does not use the same calendar as other programs.  
“PFC (has been) working with them … with this,” Hinman said. “Some events don’t fall on every calendar year.”
The request was approved with 12 votes in favor, two opposed and two senators abstaining from voting.
Sen. Max Barkley said he didn’t like the shortness of the group’s presentation and the lack of serious examination on the request. However, while Barkley advocated for a motion to rescind, none of the 12 senators who voted for funding the group would change their position.
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