Your Student Assembly spent $100,000 in three hours in its last meeting of this semester. Up to $57,000 was allocated from the consolidated reserve for the Counseling Center to hire an additional counselor to start work in the fall. $42,794 was allocated for the purchase of two 12-passenger vans in order to replace the two 15-passenger vans used for student activities that are now illegal under state law. I fully support both of these bills; even though they are both things that the administration should be responsible for. Sometimes what should be isn’t, and students will suffer without these purchases.
Two bills were passed in light of Mark Constantine’s theft of funds from the Publication Council. The Money Protection Act requests an investigation of the office of Student Activities and requests that all financial powers be taken from the office pending the result of the investigation. The Tribe Choices Act amends the finance code to functionally remove the office of Student Activities from its role in administering over the consolidated reserve. The bill lowers the amount that the office of
Student Activities can allocate within a year from the consolidated reserve from $12,500 to $10,000 and stipulates that any expenditure over $1,500 must be reported in writing to the president of the SA. Constantine and Ginger Ambler have clearly shown that they have no respect for funds accumulated through the student activities fee and should not be allowed to allocate these funds at their leisure.
Forgive my brevity, it’s been a long semester, and this was a very long meeting. And although the SA did some important things tonight, shame on them for voting down a bill that would put a cap on the consolidated reserve and actually force the SA to exercise critical thinking while funding pet projects.
