Student Senate to look at revised budgets

Luis Martinez, Administration Editor

The Student Senate will look at the newly revised budgets for Student Government Association, University Board, and Campus Recreation on Wednesday.

All three budgets were approved last week during the Apportionment Board meeting, and the senate will have the final say before the budgets go to Dan Nadler, the vice president for student affairs.

Catie Witt, the executive vice president, said the biggest trouble with the senate not having a quorum at last week’s meeting was communication.

“We have this rule where if you’re going to miss a meeting, you need to know 24 hours in advance,” Witt said. “There’s a lot of miscommunication where people were sending in excuses 10 minutes after the meeting already started.”

Witt said she was not sure if students were not caring enough because it is getting closer to the end of the school year.

Wednesday’s meeting will be longer because senate could not discuss usual business without a quorum last week.

Therefore, the items from last week’s meeting will be discussed and voted on this week in emergency legislation.

“I feel like people want to get it done, but at the same time, our senators like to ask a lot of questions and make sure they know what’s happening,” Witt said. “ They like to be informed; they’re very great leaders on campus.”

Witt also said when it comes to resolutions, the senators will ask questions like where is the money going toward and what the resolution is for.

“A lot of people are probably like just say yes,” Witt said. “(The senators) do care and they do ask a lot of questions.”

Witt said the meeting might take a bit longer than usual because the resolutions need to get through this week.

“Those bills have to get through,” Witt said. “So we can’t just talk on them and then vote on them next week.”

She also said while it will be a longer meeting, she feels like a lot will get done.

The student government budget will also be discussed and some senators may raise some question as to what was cut from the budget.

“When we were going through it as executive members, we had a lot of questions,” Witt said. “I’m very confident that the senators will have questions about why is this being cut; I know they’ll have a lot of questions depending on their role in student government.”

The Student Senate will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Arcola-Tuscola Room in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].