For the third week in a row, the Student Senate will continue the discussion of the possible changes to the student government bylaws today, which would take effect for the Fall 2012 semester.

It will also vote on the proposed budgets of the Student Recreation Center, the University Board, the student government and the Apportionment Board.

The Student Senate will have its weekly meeting at 7 p.m. today in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Mary Lane, the student vice president for business affairs, serves as the chairwoman of Apportionment Board, which approved the organizations’ budgets and sent them to the Student Senate.

“We predicted it would not increase, which means less student activity fees and overall less money,” Lane said. “This year we had a budget of $500,000 and only had to make cuts of $499.”

The $499 that needed to be cut was taken out of the student government budget.

Lane said this is the lowest amount that has needed to be cut in recent history.

“(Ed Hotwagner) came to us and offered to take the cut out of their budget since the other groups took some many cuts last year,” Lane said.

Hotwagner is the student body president.

The budgets were approved by Apportionment Board on March 22 and later introduced by Lane at the March 28 Student Senate meeting.

The Senate members will also continue to discuss the possible bylaw changes introduced March 21.

Since the changes were introduced, a variety of amendments have been made, including removing the changes about a new seating chart and changing the amount of money senate members and the student government executives can spend without a proposal approved the by the Student Senate.

Jenna Mitchell, a Student Senate member, chose to remove her sponsorship from the proposal when she realized she did not agree with many of the possible changes because of miscommunication.

Mitchell was the chairwoman of the student outreach subcommittee of the senate’s strategic planning committee.

“When you sponsor a bill, you have to vote in favor it,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t want to be forced to vote yes for something I wasn’t sure I agreed with.”

At the last meeting, Mitchell proposed lowering the amount from $200 to $150 for the executives and $100 to $75 for senate members.

“The value of the dollar is always changing and the current numbers were too small, but the proposed numbers seemed too big,” Mitchell said. “I felt like the numbers I came up were good compromises.”

Mitchell’s amendment passed and will be voted to be included in the new bylaws when the Student Senate votes on all the possible changes.

Lane said the changes could all be voted on this week, but she hopes the senate members continue to think about them.

“It is a big thing; they are voting on changing, it can’t just be pushed,” Lane said. “It is not like we don’t have any more meetings this semester.”

The Student Senate has three more meetings until the end of the semester and its final meeting is scheduled to take place on April 18.

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].