ASUO President Amelie Rousseau opposed the ASUO Department Finance Committee’s request to grant Forensics additional funds to hire a full-time staff advisor.  
Because of other departments requesting less, DFC supported increasing the budgets for Forensics and other departments.
However, there was an issue between the committee and ASUO Executive when Rousseau recommended the DFC take out or lower the request from Forensics to a part-time position.
“We did not know about this before they submitted the benchmark memo. It wasn’t clear why they needed this,” Rousseau said. “When we’re trying to be judicious and provide funding for the most programs, (this) position would only be supporting one program or department.”
Forensics is the University’s speech and debate team. This is their first year as a department recognized in the DFC rather than a program which gets funding from the ASUO Programs Finance Committee.
The budget proposal was approved with minor changes. Senators reduced the initially proposed benchmark by $6,760 by removing funding for a full-time Forensics position, but settled on a compromise to accommodate assisting Forensics in paying for a part-time position.
There were also concerns that Forensics should have prepared more before the request hit the Senate floor.
“The point is, they should have had their ducks in a row before the meeting,” Rousseau said.
DFC Chair Matt Gander said that from his understanding of the proposal, they left enough room for some of the six proposals in the benchmark request because the committee as a whole was not certain which proposals they would want to approve. One proposal the DFC is recommending is an increase in the funding for 24-hour Knight Library operation.
DFC member Nick Warren is responsible within the committee for Forensics and he said the Executive response made sense in the context of the budget increase being so large. Because the full-time position request was for $35,692 and their total budget was $37,690, the request asked for a 95.4 percent increase.
He also said he understood where Forensics was coming from.
“From my understanding, they did a lot of work that two graduate teaching fellows cannot manage by themselves,” Warren said. “This is something we will explore before their budget is due.”
Sen. Tom Schally is one of the two GTFs who coach the team. He is also one of the 10 academic senators, representing the graduate and law constituency.
During the ASUO Senate discussion about Forensics, he fought to defend the team he represents.
“If it weren’t for GTFs going beyond their normal responsibilities, the team would not operate the way it is,” Schally said.
Members of the DFC will meet with the departments they represent until budget season, to explain how the benchmark was approved and to ensure that benchmark will work for their group.
Benchmarks are the estimation that finance committees make so that Senate can approve the larger framework of a budget before the committee works on the smaller aspects of a budget, so at the end of the process, Senate is not overwhelmed by an unexpected budget increase.
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