Though the purpose of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting was to allow groups to make funding requests and last-minute transfers within their budgets to cover deficits before the end of the year, some groups left the meeting with less than they came expecting.
The meeting was not mandatory, as ASUO rules do not require the Senate to meet during dead week. Sen. Sandy Weintraub, a law student who has already begun a summer internship in New York City, was not present to make his usually passionate defenses of most funding requests.
Senate President Alex McCafferty left midway through. McCafferty’s absence obliged Sen. Nick Schultz to run the meeting, meaning he did not vote or speak on requests.
Weintraub’s absence and Schultz’s silence meant the only experienced senator disposed to defend contentious funding requests was Lidiana Soto. Across the table were avowed fiscal conservatives Sens. Nick Gower and Demic Tipitino, and with no experienced voice to oppose them, they pushed groups to reduce the amount of their requests.
First, the Planning, Public Policy and Management Student Advisory Committee was rebuked after requesting a $50 transfer to cover the costs of food at its PPPM Prom event. Gower and Tipitino pointed out that the event is a fundraiser, which meant it cannot be funded using the incidental fee.
There were also requests for direct funding from the Senate’s surplus, totaling $3,282. And those making requests found themselves under more scrutiny than usual.
Presenters from the Mills International Center requested $1,032 to buy a computer to run a projector. They got $800, as senators expressed unease at the idea of their using the funds to buy a 13-inch Apple laptop with a warranty, rather than a cheaper machine.
Some senators said they were reluctant to fund the purchase at all. They argued that computers are easily accessible across campus and available for check-out at the Knight Library.
“We’re college students and, no matter what country we’re from, we have friends who have laptops,” Tipitino said.
After the Mills Center presented, the University Survival Center asked for $2,250 to pay five student interns at the 2009 Northwestern Institute for Community Energy in Eugene, which will explore ways to make city infrastructures more sustainable.
The Survival Center’s presenter Jesse Hough, who ran for ASUO vice president in 2008, said 30 students had applied for the five positions. Tipitino questioned using ASUO funds to pay for student internships, while Gower raised procedural objections to the request. He said it would pay students in July and August, after the period for which the Senate can allocate its current surplus fund, and that it might fall outside the ASUO’s existing model for paying student stipends.
The request was voted down, with only three senators – Soto, Zachary Stark-MacMillan and Christina Ergas – voting in its favor.
The Senate also elected its summer officers. Sen. Jeremy Blanchard will be the vice chair and Gower will be the chair. Though committee chairs in the ASUO do not traditionally vote or speak in meetings, the second-year senator said he would do so during the summer.
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