Student government has asked senators who aren’t meeting their job requirements to voluntarily take lighter punishments instead of being suspended or terminated, but one senator with a spotty attendance record is still refusing punishment. The Student Senate has been reluctant to suspend or terminate Senator Dallas Brown for missing five meetings, although those sanctions are spelled out in the student government rules. Instead, a Senate committee offered Brown and other senators who have missed meetings the option of apologizing or taking a pay cut.
Student Senate President Stephanie Erickson asked Brown to read his letter of apology – one of the less severe punishment options for missing meetings – to the Senate on Wednesday night.
He refused to apologize, telling the Senate he wouldn’t admit any wrongdoing, and the missed meetings weren’t his fault because the senator scheduling meetings ignored time conflicts with his class schedule. He also said work obligations with the Designated Driver Shuttle caused him to miss meetings.
According to data the Emerald compiled Thursday, Student Senate Treasurer Mike Filippelli could be forced to apologize for missing a March 1 special meeting of the University Senate, a body of faculty members and student government representatives. Brown also missed that meeting.
Filippelli said he was absent because he had class.
“For this one, I would excuse it for all student senators because it wasn’t a regularly scheduled one. It was kind of a special meeting held for the issue of Department of Defense funding,”
Filippelli said. The meeting was required, but nothing was put to a vote, he said.
Brown told the Emerald on Thursday he wouldn’t comment.
“They’re not going to kick me off Senate, so quit calling me,” he said.
He said at Wednesday’s meeting he has done his best to represent students on campus.
“I’m proud of the work I’ve done,” he said.
Two days after the Emerald reported that Brown had missed required meetings, the Student Senate Personnel Committee drafted a list on March 8 of sanctions that would replace harsher punishments spelled out in student government rules.
The committee came up with the following three sanctions for missed meetings:
For one or two absences, senators can write an apology and read it aloud to the Senate. Three or four absences calls for a reduction in their $125-a-month pay. Five or more absences may result in firing or suspension – a last resort for the body, which is struggling with retention.
Tuesday Brown told the Emerald that he would not elect to take a pay cut. He is disputing several of the absences on account of a busy work schedule, but David Goward, who is a DDS co-director with Brown, said no DDS meetings were held on the dates that Brown missed student government meetings.
Earlier this month, Brown gave the Emerald an e-mail in which he asked the chairwoman not to schedule meetings during his class times, but the e-mail is dated after two of the missed meetings.
Brown said he had made up for his absences with extra office hours because Erickson
instructed him to do so. According to the Personnel Committee’s sanctions, making up missed meetings by holding office hours isn’t an option. Extra office hours only compensate for missing earlier office hours, not missing meetings.
Erickson wrote in an e-mail that she recommended that before the Personnel Committee made its recommendations and that she suggested adding office hours because it’s impossible to make up missed meetings by attending more meetings.
Brown would not tell the Emerald when he made up the office hours, and instead he told the Emerald to look at the records. The office hours records show Brown hasn’t made up any hours.
The Senate ombudsman is required to file complaints against senators who don’t meet their job requirements. Because of a conflict of interest involving ASUO Executive elections, ASUO President-elect and Senate Ombudsman Jared Axelrod will not be filing a complaint, and the Senate president now retains that power. Erickson said she would look into the matter.
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