The Student Government Association will no longer report all expenditures on a weekly basis on its website. A resolution passed by the SGA Senate Thursday night requires the SGA to report its budget monthly, not weekly.
A previous resolution allowing the SGA to give detailed reports on only expenses in excess of $500 was amended. The SGA will continue to give detailed reports of all expenditures.
The week’s Senate meeting began after the State of the University address by SGA President James Fowler. Fowler talked about the accomplishments of the SGA this semester and ended his speech saying, “The SGA will lead the way in unifying UA.”
The Senate began its final meeting of the semester presenting new resolutions. Senators voted on resolutions and bills presented in earlier meetings and the ones issued today. The Senate had 22 resolutions, three bills and a single joint resolution that all passed.
“I think a lot of the things that we approved as far as financially for the office are much needed,” said President pro tempore David Wilson. “I think it’s going to be some great additions that I’m really excited about. I think there are some good initiatives going on, and I’m really pleased with what we got done tonight.”
Mark-David Kennedy, SGA treasurer, spoke on resolutions and bills concerning the financial affairs committee.
“The resolutions concerning the two 52-inch TVs that are going on the SGA office in the bullpen area and outside the SGA office to display all the news come through the financial affairs office,” Kennedy said. “Since the expenditures are greater than $2,000, the code of laws says that it needs to go through Senate and have Senate approval, and that’s what was going through tonight.”
Financial affairs created a detailed transaction report of all expenditures for the month of October that was available to the Senate as well.
Initially only concerning purchasing a television for the bullpen, the resolution was amended to include the addition of three new computers.
“At the beginning, the resolution was just pertaining to the television for the bullpen area,” said Senator Ryan Flamerich. “Early this year we had an initiative to get a new bullpen area. Now we are going to add to that with the television over the area to allow for presentations to be given, so that news can be given to SGA members in bulk so everyone can see up to date what the SGA is doing within the SGA itself. We set aside in the new budget $4,000 for computers. This being the last senate meeting, we felt after I submitted the initial resolution that we should also buy the new computers for the space to give it a technological overhaul to provide a new presentation area and new computers. It made sense to add it on to that resolution, and it still pertains to the code of laws.”
The total for the television and computers comes to over $3,000. Flamerich said many of the computers are old and have been in the SGA office since the association moved in a couple of years ago.
“This is an amazing initiative to bring us back up to speed,” Flamerich said. “We’re seeing more powerful computers and laptops. It’s time for the SGA to move forward too.”
The cost for the television to be featured outside of the SGA office for all SGA members and students to learn more information comes to more than $1,500.
Senator Kimberly Goins authored a resolution that was passed concerning graduate assistantships and fellowships.
“I wrote a resolution encouraging the graduate departments and faculty to make more of an effort to increase funding for graduate assistantships and fellowships,” Goins said. “I feel good about it passing. It’s very important to increase the number of graduate assistantships and fellowships, so we’re just trying to encourage the University departments to continue to make those efforts.”
Senator Jonathan Thompson wrote three resolutions that were presented and passed before the Senate. One of the resolutions was about honoring the exhibition on and the celebration of the life of William Bradford Huie.
“Huie is an important UA graduate,” Thompson said. “It’s fitting that in the last 20 years that we have gotten around to recognizing his literary efforts and his contributions to the University. It’s a great thing that the College of Arts and Sciences is honoring this distinguished writer with an exhibit.”
The exhibition will be a part of a series of events honoring Huie’s 100th birthday and have included a journalism boot camp for high school students and a play at the Bama Theatre written and directed by professor Billy Field.
Other resolutions presented before the Senate Thursday night include a resolution encouraging students to attend the Resonance fall performance, a resolution encouraging students to attend the Afro-American Gospel Choir annual unity concert with Auburn University, a resolution for the Community Service Center and SGA to sponsor an alternative spring break trip and a resolution to host a student organization interest week with The SOURCE.
The Senate will be back in session in January.
