Senate denies special

funding requests
At Wednesday night’s ASUO Student Senate meeting, two recognized student groups that aren’t funded through the ASUO– a hip-hop group and GLOSS — each requested a $300 startup fee.
But Sen. Mary Elizabeth Madden pointed out a rule in the Green Tape Notebook that senators had overlooked. The rule prohibits the senate from allocating money to groups that hadn’t gone through the Programs Finance Committee.
Some senators said they were concerned that allocating money to a group not yet funded would set a dangerous precedent, and students might begin to take advantage of senate special requests.
“We’re moving into a dangerous area,” Sen. Andy Elliott said. He said allocating money to the hip hop group is “saying that we’ll just give $300 to any group. They should go through the PFC process.”
Elliott also questioned whether the $300 startup money allocated to Night Ride should be recalled, since Night Ride is also a new group that didn’t go through last year’s PFC process.
In other senate business, the Athletic Department Finance Committee requested a 7 percent increase — totaling $1,169,159 — for the incidental fee contract with the Athletic Department. The increase would pay for next year’s student tickets for football and basketball games — including tickets released for football games played before school begins. Until this year, the Athletic Department had covered the cost of student tickets for pre-school games.
ADFC members said they worried the Athletic Department will demand more money. But the 7 percent increase is the maximum increase student senate can implement without first asking the students for permission.
“The bottom line is, we don’t have $45,000 for the preseason tickets,” Sen. Dave Sanchez said. “We need to (meet) with the Athletic Department and say, ‘This is all the money we have to work with.’”

— Diane Huber