Missing funds and upcoming Virginia General Assembly elections dominated Student Assembly debate Tuesday.
The SA approved the Senior Class Reimbursement Act in addition to three other bills.
To reimburse the senior class for the misplaced funds from the Homecoming T-shirt sales, the Senior Class Reimbursement Act allocated $1,920 to cover the losses. Senate Chair Noah Kim ’13 explained the situation and announced that a police investigation is under way.
“This is a really important bill. So much of the senior class programming is dependent on these funds and this was a loss not from any fault of the senior class, but through the oversight of a non-senior SA officer,” Kim said.
Senior Class President Stephanie McGuire ’12 spoke on behalf of the senior class in defense of this bill.
“You’re not voting for a band-aid … really this bill is directed toward making sure that the class of 2012 is able to fund their senior class events,” McGuire said.
Noah defended the bill to SA members, who compared it unfavorably to last year’s “Senior Bailout Bill.”
“The reasoning behind the sponsoring of [last year’s] bill was there had been so much turnover in the senior class that it crippled their ability to fundraise … this [year’s] senior class also had a lot of turnover. They, however, did not automatically call for a bailout because they are on top of their game,” Kim said.
Focus then turned to the upcoming Virginia General Assembly elections Nov. 8. Four candidates running for a General Assembly seat include Robin Abbot (D-93), Sen. John Miller (D-1), Mickey Chohany (R) and Mike Watson (R). The SA approved Dan Casey ’14 as Undersecretary for Legislative Affairs and unanimously passed The Get Out the Vote Act (GOTV), allocating $77.25 to fund programming for Tuesday’s elections.
“This bill would pay for some programming in the lead up and on the day of election day,” Kim said.
The SA also unanimously approved The Charter Day Concert Act II, allocating 30 percent of the Student Assembly Reserve, or $25,000, to fund the AMP-sponsored Charter Day Concert.
“Last year, it was a big hit, and we have a lot of support from the student body to do it again this year,” AMP member Andrew Fiddey ’12 said.
The SA unanimously approved The Spooktacular Act sponsored by Matt Pagnussi ’14 to fund Spooktacular, which will take place Friday from 3 to 5 p.m.
Kim also introduced The 2011 Finance Renewal Act which was sent to the finance, executive and policy committees.
“[The act] brings the language and code up to date … [and] updates the code to reflect current practices that are much more efficient,” Kim said.
Kim introduced the Checks and Balances Act, which proposes to add members to the executive committee.