At its meeting Wednesday, Student Senate took an informal vote to see how each member felt about keeping allocations of its budget for specific events each year.
Budget Committee Chair Maggie Giansante and Treasurer Johnny Susany gave a presentation to the rest of Senate to explain what funds are allocated and how they affect the budget as a whole.
“(Allocations) are certain amounts or percentages of our budget that is set aside for specific commissions or events,” Giansante said. “These can't be used for anything else, and if they are not used, they are rolled over to the next semester.”
Currently, Student Senate allocates funds for events and organizations, including Take Back the Night, Pride Week, Students Defending Students and Cat’s Cupboard. In total, Senate allocates nearly $6,100 of its yearly $20,000 budget.
Susany emphasized to the rest of Senate the allocations are not required by Senate but are things it chooses to invest in.
“While we support and partner with these groups, of course, these are not necessarily something we get very involved with that aren't necessarily completely under our jurisdiction, but there is a very collaborative effort,” Susany said.
Prior to the informal vote, a 15-minute time limit was set for discussion of the potential abolition of these allocations from the budget.
Several members of Senate shared their opinions on the issue, including Assistant Chief of Staff Landen Hensel, Environmental Affairs Commissioner Charlie Bartels and Vice President Kiandra Martin.
Hensel expressed his distaste for the allocations and voted to get rid of them.
“I'm going to disagree and say that we need to get rid of allocations,” Hensel said. “I think we can trust our budget committee enough to make decisions.”
Both Martin and Bartels agreed the allocations were necessary and needed to remain implemented in Senate's budget each year.
Martin said she believes allocations should stay in place because they have been a tradition in Senate for such a long time.
“We should probably listen to who this would affect,” Bartels said. “Specifically, the Commissions it affects, the minority groups it affects. I trust the people in Senate right now. I don't know if I always would. I think it would be unwise to act without that consideration.”
Giansante said the informal vote does not decide if allocations will be abolished but could decide if further legislation on the issue will be voted on in the future.
There was also debate among the Senate about a bill that supports the unionization of Ohio University faculty.
Giansante was the primary sponsor of this bill and said increasing class sizes and workload for faculty are resulting in fewer connections between professors and their students.
“The goals of the OU union would be hiring more teaching faculty, reducing class loads and increasing wages for faculty who provide the main service, which is why we're all here as students,” Giansante said.
Some members of Senate disagreed with the purpose of this bill, one of them being Governmental Affairs Commissioner Donald Theisen.
Theisen said he does not think it is Senate’s place to support this issue because the number one concern of Senate should be students.
*University Life Commissioner Luke Fredricks agreed with Theisen in voting “nay” on the bill because the unionizations solely affect faculty and administration.
“Issues like wages, benefits and working conditions are primary labor matters that should be handled by the employees and administration,” Fredricks said. “The Student Senate role should remain focused on representing student interests rather than engaging in employment negotiations.”
Senate was divided when the vote was taken, but the majority voted in favor of the bill, passing it.
Other business of Senate included passing resolutions to add performance reviews to commissions and revising the process in which the judicial panel handles disputes within Senate.
