Boston University Student Union senators argued over what direction to take the organization for more than an hour Tuesday night before passing a budget proposal nearly unanimously, removing the Senate’s allocation privileges.
Vice President of Finance Joe Rollin presented the document to the senators and told them he designed the budget to provide more checks on the Union and to avoid future allocation problems.
‘We can’t even handle ourselves at this point, and this budget could be laughed at tomorrow when I bring this budget upstairs,’ Rollin said.
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore must ratify the document before it takes effect.
In previous years, student groups presented proposals to the Funding Allocations Committee, which then presented a recommended allocation amount to the Senate. The Senate then voted on and allocated funds for student groups using the Special Projects Account, which contained $12,000 last year.
The proposed budget suspended all funds in the Special Projects Account and transferred them to the Request Account. The Executive Board currently controls this account, but Rollin said the E-Board will not use the account for its own purposes.
‘The Executive Board will be responsible for those funds, but the Executive Board will not be able to spend those funds on the Executive Board,’ Rollin said.
The E-Board may not control the account for the entire year, although Rollin said he did not know who would eventually control the funds. That determination will come before Elmore, he said.
‘As of right now, I don’t know how we’re going to handle that,’ he said. ‘That’s to be determined probably next week.’
Student groups that need funding currently request funds from the Student Union Allocations Board, though alternative funding can come from the Request Account, which now contains more than $25,000.
While some senators questioned the idea of removing all funding requests from Senate chambers, Sen. Jon Marker (Warren Towers) said the budget promoted ideals he feels the Senate should work toward.
‘About two hours ago, we decided that the goal of the Senate and the Union in general is advocacy,’ Marker said. ‘We’re not here to hand out money we said that we have a special body for that it’s called SUAB. I don’t think the Senate should be here for funding. They should be here for advocacy.’
Rollin also placed a check on the Senate Discretionary Account the account handled by Senate Chair Joel Fajardo and Vice Chair Rowan Armor by giving E-Board members the opportunity to veto funding requests from this account.
Rollin said he added $1,000 to the Office Account which funds office supplies because everyone in the Union uses the account. The General Account, which contains E-Board funding, will receive more than $14,000 this year, whereas last year the account held more than $27,700. Rollin said he moved funds from the General Account to the Request Account because the General Account had a $7,000 surplus last year. Rollin also said transferring the funds will allow the Union branches to receive funds in a more efficient manner.
Last year, 10 percent of the budget went to the Student Union Election Commission, but Rollin said he reduced the amount to 8 percent this year to avoid another surplus. SUEC Chair Olga Romanova said she understood this decision and was not upset with the change in allocations.
DEBATES FIRE UP
At the beginning of the meeting, debate arose over the next course of action for the Union to take, with senators addressing concerns ranging from the order of the meeting’s agenda to the Senate’s purpose as a whole.
While many senators said they feel the Senate is serving a purpose, some called into question current Senate work due to recent conflicts within the Union.
Sen. Deon Provost (Myles Standish Hall) said he feels recent controversy impeded the Senate progress but said addressing the issues further would not unearth a solution.
‘Your feelings are important all of our feelings are, but the fact is we’ve been talking about our problems for the past month,’ he said. ‘So I say that we move on sitting here and talking about our feelings isn’t going to do anything.’
But School of Hospitality Administration President Anthony Garofalo said he feels the Union must address problems before it will accomplish anything.
‘Number one would be to fix the problems with the Student Union before promoting the Student Union because you don’t want to promote something that’s kind of broken,’ Garofalo said. ‘You need to address the problem that is here now because you can’t do anything else until that problem is fixed.’
Sen. Marc Webber (Shelton Hall) said passing the budget would demonstrate unity and work as the first step forward.
‘I think we owe it to the Student Union and the student body so far,’ he said. ‘It sets up a lot of safeguards against mishaps that have happened in the past.’
Sen. Rebecca Schultz (School of Management) said the issues could not wait until next week’s meeting and the proposed budget would solve funding problems.
‘I absolutely do not think we should table this until next week,’ she said. ‘This takes care of everything it has checks on everything.’
Rollin said specific policy changes in the proposed budget would prevent situations similar to the recent controversial appropriations of funds by Executive VP Remie Ferreira. According to the proposed budget, the Union president and the chairperson of the committee requesting funds must write their names on any funding form if the VP of Finance is unavailable and then inform him of the act by email.
OTHER UNION NEWS
Tribunal members announced the petition filed on Saturday for a writ of mandamus was granted a review and further investigation will take place.
Armor filed a petition for a writ calling for the impeachment of Woog and Ferreira, charging them with deceit, misappropriation of funds and failure to produce bylaws.
Woog and Ferreira have until Friday to submit an answer to the writ filed against them. Oral arguments will be scheduled, as well as a specific court date to hear all the evidence.
Four new senators were also sworn in last night: one representing the College of General Studies, one representing South Campus and two representing the Student Residences at 10 Buick St.
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