USS considers allocations amendments

Jessica Rothschuh

Undergraduate student senators proposed several major amendments to the allocations guidelines last night, though they did not all pass.

Executive Director Gary Broadbent proposed an amendment to eliminate the All Campus Programming Board’s block funding, but it did not pass.

Currently, ACPB receives 54 percent of USS’s projected annual tuition allocation to use for programming. The proposed amendment would have required ACPB to request funds for each program from the allocations committee.

“That was just to make our expenditures more accountable to the students,” Broadbent said. “It’s important for student organizations, including ACPB and USS, to remember it’s not our money that we’re spending. It’s the students’ money.”

Sen. Bill Ross proposed a successful amendment requiring student organizations that receive block funding to have a USS member become one of the voting members of that organization’s executive board.

This amendment currently affects only ACPB and the May 4 Task Force.

An amendment also was approved to add a member of the Inner Greek Programming Board to the allocations’ at-large committee.

An amendment was proposed to ban the advertisement of off-campus after-parties from advertisements paid for with allocations money, but the amendment was not passed.

USS planned to discuss the request for student fee increases, and Ross was expected to oppose the increase in funding for student media, but that plan was dropped.

Ross said he decided not to propose a resolution concerning student media because he could not justify opposing only one type of student fee increase. He still opposes all fee increases.

Students should give up increases in their activity fees in order to set an example of fiscal frugality for the administration, Ross said.

“Sometimes students need to take initiative and lead by example,” Ross said. “We’re just going to have to make those types of sacrifices.”

When asked if he would propose a new resolution opposing all student fee increases at the next USS meeting, Ross said, “We’ll see where we’re at in two weeks.”

Contact student politics reporter Jessica Rothschuh at [email protected].