Senate looks to amend seating

At the Student Senate meeting two bills proposing to amend the constitution were presented and seconded. The bills will sit for two weeks, allowing senators to read them over before debating as it will affect the constitution.

The first bill would fix small inconsistencies and errors in the constitution. The second bill proposes to only give class council presidents a seat in the Student Senate.

"I am making this amendment to the constitution because we gave them all senate seats two years ago in a reform of the constitution," senior Ricardo Pineres said. "But unfortunately, many members of the class councils see Senate as a hassle and do not attend the meetings, making it very hard for them to be accountable, thus detracting from the effectiveness of Senate."

The propossed change would only offer voting privileges to the presidents of each class rather than the entire class council.

The SGA also is preparing for front-end budget discussion at next Tuesday’s meeting. This will be the first time the FEB reform passed earlier in the year will be in effect. Under the reform, non-FEB groups can apply for program grants.

"With program grants, we are hoping to alleviate the demand of contingency," executive treasurer," SGA executive treasurer, junior Gina Maurone said. "This will help non-FEB groups with events that affect the whole campus."

As a single organization, a group can request up to $5,000. Two or more organizations can request up to $7,500. Three or more groups can request up to $10,000. The purpose of this is to promote groups collaborating with each other to put on events, according to Maurone.

There will still be contingency available to non-FEB groups; however, the maximum contingency request was lowered to $2,000 from previous years’ $4,000. The applications are available on the SGA Web site and are due April 8. A motion was made to amend the SGA constitution to include scholarships for the director of communications, chief of staff, historian and parliamentarian. The scholarships are currently in the budget but were not in the Constitution. By passing the motion, the student senate said they approve the scholarships. The motion was passed.