The meeting
The weekly Wednesday night ASUO Senate meeting entailed four special requests, separate requests for new senators to join Senate internal committees and a discussion section added near the end to talk about how the Programs Finance Committee treats groups.
The decisions
The UO Swing Club requested a transfer of $297.60 from administrative line items to the “On-campus events” line item.  The transfer was approved unanimously.
The Indonesian student group PERMIAS requested to transfer $60 within the group as well as $800 from surplus to make up for a deficit in their cultural event. The $60 in-group transfer was unanimously approved while the surplus request had 15 votes in favor. Sen. James Dos Santos abstained due to arriving just before a vote was taken.
Arab Student Union made a request for $3,000 for its Hafli (Arabic for party), scheduled for Feb. 26. Because the ASU will be able to make $1,000 from ticket sales for the event, and it would have to return to surplus for later events, the motion was amended twice to $2,500 and $2,000, and unanimously approved at the final $2,000.
The Emerald delivery staff made a request of $3,000 to cover bike management. Emerald Business Manager Kathy Carbone found cheaper supplies, and the final number of $2,600 was also unanimously approved.
The tension
Each week, the final two sections on each agenda are updates from officers, finance committees and senate internal committees. Typically, these happen to be announcements about meetings coming up. However, Sen. Marissa Garcia, the law school’s Senate representative, said she has talked to many law programs that have had problems working with members of the PFC.
“I’ve gotten a lot of negative feedback from law groups based on how they were treated by PFC,” Garcia said.
Sen. Kaitlyn Lange added a discussion section at that point for senators to discuss different thoughts on how to fix the problem of overworked committee members.
Sen. Max Barkley said he had talked to Sen. Laura Hinman about a proposal for each program to have its budget assigned by a formula, and if it had problems with the funding level, contact the PFC to hold a hearing. Barkley thought such a proposal could cut down on time expected from senators and committee members, and allow them to spend more time on groups that needed it.
A similar proposal was suggested by former Sen. Erin Altman in her Jan. 11 resignation letter.
“I feel that Executive Recommendations could be the initially allocated amount,” Altman said at the end of her letter, recommending a way to save time come budget season. “(This) would create necessity for budget hearings only when the PFC recalls a group, or when the group would like to appeal the Executive Recommendation.”
However, Sen. Evan Thomas said budget season happens just once a year and that problems are based on the bureaucracy. He added that the current system is based on allowing PFC to work outside of the Executive recommendation on certain cases.
“What if we find one year where PFC and the Exec can’t compromise and don’t feel good with that number?” Thomas said. “We can’t help that we’re students and change every year.”
Next week
ASUO Vice President Maneesh Arora said the Executive branch should have appointees ready by next week. Also, he brought up OSPIRG’s Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee hearing, which happened earlier Wednesday evening. He said he talked to people after the hearing who walked out “thinking it was shady.”
He said OSPIRG members will pursue having the Senate reconsider the decision of the ACFC to adjourn before allocating funding.
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