This past Sunday, the GUSA Senate amended its bylaws regarding the election of committee chairs, requiring that all chairs, not just the chair of the Finance and Appropriations Committee, be elected by the entire senate. Some dissenting senators worried that changing the process would allow the cliques in GUSA to form undemocratic voting blocs.

Other committees are just as important as FinApp

Before the change, only the Senate Speaker, Vice Speaker, Chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, and the members of FinApp were elected by the entire body. Due to “SAFE reform and their responsibility over the GUSA budget,” the FinApp chair is voted on by the entire senate, explained Senator Ben Weiss (Col ‘15). “The reason Vice Speaker Nate Tisa (SFS ‘14) changed this bylaw was to make it so that all committees are of equal importance, especially now that SAFE reform is essentially over,” Weiss said. Besides creating more equality between the committees, Weiss hopes the change will encourage committee chairs to have clearly defined goals. “One of the main critiques of student life and CBO [Community Building and Outreach] is they don’t have clearly defined goals,” but with this process “chairs will have to have clear goals going into the year,” Weiss said.

Dan LaMagna doesn’t fit in with GUSA cliques

Senator Dan LaMagna (COL ‘13) raised concerns before Sunday’s vote. He describes the voting for Speaker, Vice Speaker, the Chair, and members of FinApp as a highly political process. “I do realize this is student politics and its what people are sort of in it for, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a good thing,” LaMagna said. For him, there is no need to change the current system because it works well. “People should be electing the people who will be leading them on a weekly basis,” LaMagna explained, adding “I don’t know why I need to be voting for the chair of FinApp, [but] I can understand why we vote for the members of the committee because it does control all the money.” Senator LaMagna serves on the Student Life committee. At the meeting LaMagna and others raised concerns of power blocs forming in the senate, considering that approximately 15 senators are returning every year and would be able to, in effect, control who becomes committee chairs. “There are cliques in the Senate, and one tends to be more powerful than the other. You want to make things as democratic as possible, and I think the best way to do that is voting within committees,” LaMagna said.

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At yesterday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate, the most venerable senators approved the third member of the IRC Triumvirate Election Commission, the new chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, and discussed the future of the GUSA Fund. And there were some long speeches read directly to Vox on unrelated topics, but we’ll save those for another time.

Three’s company

Election Commissioner Adam Giansiracusa (SFS ’12) presented his replacement, who was vetted by the executive and approved by the senate yesterday. Pavan Rajgopal (SFS ’15) was selected because of his basic competency as a person, according to Giansiracusa. Rajgopal was approved by the senate with the expectation (they even asked him about this) that he will serve until he graduates (or is removed by the senate for disqualifying a candidate for illegitimate reasons an hour before the election, as Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) reminded him).

In response to a question about punishing candidates for violations, Rajgopal said that he would be comfortable with it, and he would rather be proactive in preventing violations.

It was also mentioned that Rajgopal is a member of the IRC, like the other two current members of the EC and was outgoing chair AG. ”We’ll not draw too much attention to that now,” Talbot added.

Fynapp

Since two members, including the chair, of the Finance and Appropriations committee moved to the executive, the senate approved Shiela Walsh (COL ’14), the first female finapp member, as chair and then appointed Robert Shepard (COL ’15) and Laura Kresse (SFS ’12) to the committee.

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At yesterday’s meeting, the Georgetown University Student Association senate passed six bills, some of which were more important than others and some of which took longer to talk about.

Big Budget, Big Budget

First the outgoing chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), talked about the finalized budget for next year. This round of allocations reflects the last major increase from SAFE reform, so the distribution of money will probably be a template for future years, according to Malkerson.

For the six advisory boards, Finapp allocated 24 percent of the $960,000 pie to Club Sports, 19 to CSJ ABSO, 16 to SAC, 10 to GPB, six to Media Board, and five to PAAC. They only allocated two percent to GUSA.

Deviating from previous years, Finapp allocated money directly to the Lecture Fund instead of indirectly through SAC. Lecture Fund still has Access to Benefits through SAC, but creating a separate allocation frees up SAC’s funds for other organizations.

Although the increase in funding for most boards was commensurate with the overall funding increase, Club Sports’s allocation decreased by $20,000 compared to last year. According to Finapp member Bridget Power (COL ’12), Club Sports received a mammoth increase at last year’s budget summit, going from $115,000 in 2011 to $250,000 in 2012. This year, Finapp scaled down that increase to make room for other projects.

In other Finapp news, the Senate also allocated another $3500 to the GUSA fund to allow them to finish out the year. According to Malkerson, the current system of funding for the GUSA fund, in which the GUSA fund has to request money from GUSA whenever it needs it, makes it difficult for them to effectively budget.

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Last night, the Georgetown University Student Association’s Finance and Appropriations Committee met to discuss updates from the Endowment working groups.

The meeting began with a short discussion about Healy Pub, and the nails that Jack DeGioia and Todd Olsen banged into its coffin in their meeting with student media earlier this month. Although GUSA had initially backed the Healy Pub idea, voting to allocate most of the $3.4 million endowment to its creation.

“I don’t think anyone thinks there’s a whole lot of life left in that proposal,” FinApp Chair Colton Malkerson (COL ’13) said of the plan.

With the impending failure of the Healy Pub idea, FinApp’s meeting primarily focused on following up on proposals for the endowment. The first group to present was Georgetown Energy, who spoke about their proposal to put solar panels on 43 of Georgetown’s University-owned townhouses. Originally, the SAFE commission voted to dedicate the portion of the endowment that was not allocated to Healy Pub—about $170,000—to this project.

At the meeting, a group of members of Georgetown Energy, including co-founders Peter Nulsen (COL ’12) and Anthony Conyers (COL ’12), and manager of the townhouse project David Nulsen (COL ’12) and whom Malkerson referred to as “The Solar Boys,” went in front of the FinApp committee to discuss the progress of their proposal since the spring. The group is in the process of soliciting a Request for Proposals from five vendors in the area to install and maintain the panels. The installation of these panels would, according to Peter Nulsen, bring in an $400,000 gross payback, all of which will go back to the Georgetown student body.

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The Georgetown University Student Association unanimously passed the proposed student activities budget for the fiscal year 2012.

Due to the Student Activities Fee Endowment Reform that passed a student referendum last semester, many advisory boards received larger allocations than last year and a number of groups that did not receive funding last year will be funded for FY2012.

The largest allocation went to the Advisory Board for Club Sports ($250,000), followed by the Center for Social Justice Advisory Board for Student Organizations ($150,000), and the Student Activities Commission ($90,000).

GUSA opted to lower its own allocation by $1,000 this year.

Read the full budget after the jump.

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Student activities fees are moving on up. Yesterday, GUSA’s Student Activities Fee Endowment reform passed referendum with 1,703 votes in favor and 743 against.

The reform will increase the student activities fee to $62.50 per semester during the 2011-2012 academic year, then to $75 per semester the following academic year. After that, the fee will increase indefinitely at the standard rate of inflation. The whole of the fee will be allocated to student activities, unlike the current policy which allocates half to activities and half to an endowment.

After online polls closed at midnight, Greg Laverriere, chairman of GUSA’s Finance and Appropriations Committee, celebrated the results in a press release.

“The results tonight will affect Georgetown students for decades to come,” he said. “Clubs and organizations on this campus are the big winners tonight.”

Colton Malkerson, vice chairman of the FinApp Committee, echoed Laverriere’s statements.

“It’s a tall order asking students to increase their own fees to benefit student life, but in this referendum the student body stepped up and did what was right,” he said. “The passage of this referendum puts even more responsibility on GUSA and expectations are high, but I’m confident we will prove ourselves and deliver.”

After weeks of town hall meetings, the GUSA Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee unanimously passed Student Activities Fee Endowment reform legislation on Wednesday night. The GUSA Senate will vote on the SAFE reform bill on Sunday.

The proposed reform will increase the student activities fee to $62.50 per semester during the 2011-2012 academic year. During the 2012-2013 academic year, the fee will be raised to $75 per semester. After that, the fee will increase indefinitely at the standard rate of inflation.

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At Sunday’s Georgetown University Student Association Senate meeting, senators announced that another town hall meeting concerning Student Activities Fee and Endowment reform will be held this Wednesday.

Senator Greg Laverierre (COL ’12), chairperson of the FinApp committee, said that the turnout was “less than expected” at last week’s town hall for SAFE reform. Nonetheless, suggestions made by students at the meeting may have a large impact on the new legislation for the Student Activities fee.

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With the time left in the spring semester quickly running out, the Student Activities Commission has delayed the introduction of lump sum funding into its allocation process, which was originally slated to begin this month, until the Fall 2010 semester.

For the fall, SAC will begin to transition some clubs to lump sum funding, or bulk allocation, while still allocating money on an event-by-event basis for most clubs. For the Spring of 2011, SAC plans to allocate to all clubs through lump sum funding, while still reserving money to allocate for specific events not included in the full semester budgets clubs will present for SAC approval.

Georgetown University Student Association Senator Greg Laverriere (COL ’12), the Finance and Appropriations Committee member who liaisons with SAC, said that SAC chose to delay the transition so the switch would go smoothly, and not because they were reconsidering bulk allocation.

“I know from sitting in on their meetings that they are fully committed to the switch,” he wrote in an e-mail.

In a phone conversation, he explained that SAC would spend the summer reworking many of its budgeting rules for the changeover, including standardizing amounts they will allocate for individual events, like a dinner in Copley Formal. There are guidelines in place now, but they are not specific enough to facilitate an efficient bulk allocation process.

Neither SAC Chair Ethel Amponsah (NHS ’11) nor SAC Commissioner Harrison Holcomb (NHS ’11) responded to repeated requests for comment, but SAC minutes show that most commissioners felt that the original time line was rushed.

Lump sum funding is one of the remaining few funding board reforms SAC must accomplish before GUSA will allocate its portion of the Student Activities Fee. Members of the FinApp Committee will hold discussions with SAC members this week or next to try to reach an agreement on transparent voting, which SAC is still resisting.

The agenda of this Sunday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association was dominated by the vote on the budget passed out of the Financial Appropriations Committee for fiscal year 2011 on Thursday.

But Senators still found time to remark on the most recent controversy at Georgetown, the Plan A protest held over GAAP weekend, and dream about convening the GUSA Senate in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

GUSA Budget FY ’11: The GUSA Senate voted to approve the fiscal year 2011 GUSA budget, which allocated $0 to both the Student Activities Commission and the Performing Arts Advisory Council. The budget will increase the level of funding received by Club Sports, Georgetown Program Board, the Center for Social Justice, and the GUSA Executive, while funding for the Media Board will remain unchanged.

Members of the Financial and Appropriations Committee who presented the budget said they had brought the budget without funding for either SAC or PAAC before the Senate because they didn’t want to delay funding for the other advisory boards. They are working to reach agreements with SAC and PAAC on compromises so the two groups could meet GUSA’s six suggested reforms and receive money from the student activities fee.

The senators said they were confident that both PAAC and SAC would receive student activities fee from supplemental funding after they had complied with the reforms. Senators have said that the agreement with PAAC is only awaiting a review by its members. Meanwhile, Senators will meet with SAC soon to try to negotiate an agreement.

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