Battle of the budgets - Senate, SUFAC
Karen Meyer
Issue date: 5/7/09 Section: News
The Student Senate holds the position of student representation, and is the only branch of SGA that does not receive honorarium payments strictly for their positions, with the exception of Speaker and Vice President. Since there is no direct gain from what the general SGA budget is, it was decided that it is only fair that this be the group who wields the final authority in SGA's own budget matters.
"The court ruled that having five senators on SUFAC isn't quite neutral enough," Tyrrell said. "Having a senate of 20 is definitely a lot more neutral and a lot more objective."
An amendment was presented that would grant the senate full control over SGA's budget. It didn't, however, gain the approval of two thirds of the senate and was shot down shortly thereafter.
It was eventually decided to grant senate the power to approve or disapprove the budget set by SUFAC.
"The original SGA constitution was drawn to mimic the federal government, and in the federal government the senate has a financial committee that creates the budget and presents it to the entire senate," said Kehl, though he did acknowledge the differences between the federal government and ours on campus. "SUFAC works as that body."
While Kehl believes this amendment is a small change, it could perpetuate into something more significant if used in the wrong matter.
"It's very open to interpretation," Kehl said. "There wasn't a policy that was set up. My problem is that it is open-ended and there was never a discussion of the vagueness of it."
Some believe that this will help resolve future conflict within SGA.
"What we did was basically created a safety mechanism so if there is clashing, there is an outside force that wields the final authority," said Nick Cibula, senate speaker.
He went on to compare student government as a corporation, with SUFAC representing a subsidiary of the main holding company -- SGA.
"You can't have a subsidiary telling the holding company what to do," he said. "The primary group always has the final say."
This brings the University of Wisconsin Green Bay one step closer to having senate take care of all budgets, which is a rule the rest of the UW system currently abides by.
"Though some may be shocked at this, but it really isn't that big of a change," Cibula said. "This occurs within every other university, only to an even greater extent."
"The court ruled that having five senators on SUFAC isn't quite neutral enough," Tyrrell said. "Having a senate of 20 is definitely a lot more neutral and a lot more objective."
An amendment was presented that would grant the senate full control over SGA's budget. It didn't, however, gain the approval of two thirds of the senate and was shot down shortly thereafter.
It was eventually decided to grant senate the power to approve or disapprove the budget set by SUFAC.
"The original SGA constitution was drawn to mimic the federal government, and in the federal government the senate has a financial committee that creates the budget and presents it to the entire senate," said Kehl, though he did acknowledge the differences between the federal government and ours on campus. "SUFAC works as that body."
While Kehl believes this amendment is a small change, it could perpetuate into something more significant if used in the wrong matter.
"It's very open to interpretation," Kehl said. "There wasn't a policy that was set up. My problem is that it is open-ended and there was never a discussion of the vagueness of it."
Some believe that this will help resolve future conflict within SGA.
"What we did was basically created a safety mechanism so if there is clashing, there is an outside force that wields the final authority," said Nick Cibula, senate speaker.
He went on to compare student government as a corporation, with SUFAC representing a subsidiary of the main holding company -- SGA.
"You can't have a subsidiary telling the holding company what to do," he said. "The primary group always has the final say."
This brings the University of Wisconsin Green Bay one step closer to having senate take care of all budgets, which is a rule the rest of the UW system currently abides by.
"Though some may be shocked at this, but it really isn't that big of a change," Cibula said. "This occurs within every other university, only to an even greater extent."
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