Student Senate Finance Committee will update, clarify Budget Code ...

How student organizations obtain funding for travel expenses will be reviewed this semester, along with several other changes, as the Student Senate Finance Committee updates the 11-year-old Student Senate Budget Code.

Finance Committee chairman Josh Dean said members of the committee are altering the Budget Code, Article VIII of the Student Senate Rules and Regulations, to make its structure and language clearer for the student body. The committee also intends to take record of rules that are currently in practice but have never been written down.

?The last overhaul of the budget code took place in 2000, and people have made lots of amendments, and many rules have been changed,? Dean said. ?Right now, the rules are very confusing for people.?

One such rule is item 8.2.5.6.1, which says, ?No funds from student fees shall be allocated or apportioned to any corporation, organization, or group for travel expenses.? Organizations are able to apply for an exemption to this rule, but requirements for the exemption are not written in the code and currently need to be interpreted by the Finance Committee.

Article 8.2.5.6.1

?No funds from student fees shall be allocated or apportioned to any corporation, organization, or group for travel expenses.?

Source: Student Senate Rules and Regulations, last updated in 2000

Any student organization can apply for the exemption with a bill that must receive two-thirds of the vote in the Finance and Rights committees before going to the Senate for another two-thirds vote.

?The big test we use is, ?Is travel vital to the existence of your group?,?? Dean said about any organization seeking a travel exemption.

If the general answer is yes, the organization may be eligible for an exemption. Another parameter the committee looks at is if the organization is inclusive to all students, Dean said.

While these specifications have been the unofficial benchmarks for a travel exemption for many years, at least one student organization has not agreed with the committee?s answer to that question.

Engineers Without Borders, a student organization that participates in engineering projects around the world, applied for a travel exemption in November. It was denied, because the Finance and Rights committees thought it was an organization that could exist without travel.

Rights Committee chairman Aaron Harris ruled out the proposed exemption for Engineers Without Borders, because he thought the organization wasn?t completely inclusive.

?We can?t fund a group that charges dues to its members,? he said. ?If a group wants funding, it must be open to all students, not those who pay.?

But the leader of Engineers Without Borders contends that the group is still inclusive by being open to all KU students from any major.

?We have other majors besides engineering that travel with us,? said Mary Adams, the president of Engineers Without Borders.

The travel exemption request was brought to a vote in the Finance Committee, but didn?t receive the two-thirds vote to move onto the Senate. Adams said she thought the bill was rejected because Engineers Without Borders doesn?t participate in competitions like some organizations with the exemption, and because it was compared with other organizations that didn?t have the same travel requirements.

?To exist as a chapter we have to travel in this case, but to exist as a member in the chapter, you don?t have to travel,? she said.

Dean said the committee discussed that the organization doesn?t participate in competitions and that most group members don?t travel when the committee made its decision.

Engineers Without Borders was hoping to take about eight people to Bolivia to build latrines for underdeveloped areas, but are now taking fewer people, Adams said. The organization has applied for funding in previous years, but was also denied then.

?The fact that they?ve been around without (student fee) funding shows they can exist,? Harris said.

Clarification of the rules and regulations about funding may help organizations better determine if they should put resources into providing exemption requests.

?I think it would be very beneficial to be more clear about that,? Adams said about the Finance Committee?s review of the Budget Code.

According to Dean, members of the Finance Committee are currently reviewing the student-fee portion of the Budget Code, but he estimated the committee will start reviewing the part related to travel exemptions in March.

? Edited by Corinne Westeman

Source: http://www.kansan.com/news/2012/jan/24/finance-committee/

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