Fifth meeting of the semester
Student Association held its fifth senate meeting Tuesday in Lanigan 103 at 6 p.m.
Thirteen senators were in attendance. The agenda was to amend a bill and vote on several resolutions regarding additional funds.
LSU asks for additional funds
Last week at SA, Latino Student Union President Kaylina Rivera addressed the senate, asking for additional funds to make Hewitt Union feel more like a carnival to celebrate Latino culture, which would include carnival games and team building exercises during LSU’s annual dinner.
It has been four years since the event has had a speaker and the union is hopeful these additional funds will bring one this year. LSU also requested funds to decorate the building and rent a popcorn machine, cotton candy machine and posters. All together, the union requested $540 in additional funds.
This week, LSU Treasurer Juan Fermin was present to continue the presentation. The resolution was passed, the bill was debated and amended and then passed again, giving the LSU an additional $317.32 in funds.
Involvement Fair Leftovers
SA works every year with Campus Life to promote the Student Involvement Fair, a student organization in the form of a meet-and-greet. The SA Executive branch budgets for funds during the event. This year, $2,500 was budgeted for use during the Involvement Fair to assist Campus Life with food, advertisement and possibly programming.
This year, Auxiliary Services cut funding for the event by over 50 percent, so the Executive branch still holds $900.50 in the account and this can be used for other events. SA said that one of its responsibilities is to manage the Student Activity fee.
The resolution was to transfer the funds from the Involvement Fair account to Executive Projects. The resolution was passed with 13 yeses, and zero noes and one abstention.
Amending Executive Budget
The budget for the SA Executive Branch is left in the hands of the president on the way out of office, and two accounts were created for this year in further developing and maintaining SA’s website. Previously, SA had hired someone to keep its website updated. With the recent initiation of Laker Life, a student community partly used as a collection of campus organization web pages, SA decided to discontinue its personal website and to resort to just the Laker Life page. The loss of the website director leaves $2,000, which representatives suggested to use for a leadership conference, an event that various leadership organizations and departments provide fee-paying students an opportunity to learn leadership and realize leadership potential. President Anthony Smith proposed a resolution that the $2,000 be moved to a new, non-payroll account labeled “Leadership Conference.” The resolution was not debated, and was passed unanimously.
2013-2014 Election Timeline
The SA elections will take place during the spring semester. The direct schedule of debates prior to the election needs to be finalized at least three weeks before the end of the fall semester so the election can take place on schedule in March. The senate referred the Judiciary committee for one week.
Go Green Team Educational Conference
Students requested $100 to pay for tickets to the Cornell University Roundtable, a group of experts who will share tactics for college campuses to go green and encourage more environmentally friendly facilities. The senate referred the resolution to the Judiciary committee for one week.
The next SA meeting will be held on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. in 103 Lanigan Hall.
