SA debates proposed budget
By Wendy Alford
Flat Hat Staff Writer
This week's Student Assembly Senate meeting began with the approval of last week's minutes, called for by senior Dheeraj Jagadev, chair of the senate.
A presidential update was given by Vice President Brandi Zehr, a junior. Zehr announced the progress of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which ended last night with the annual Take Back the Night rally.
Zehr also discussed the letter SA President Brian Cannon, a junior, is writing to Gov. Mark Warner to address issues involving tuition increases throughout Virginia as a result of the budget crisis.
"Brian contacted all of our counterparts at the other Virginia four year institutions to sign on to the letter," Zehr said.
The letter asks Warner to veto all legislation passed by the General Assembly, which would allow more flexibility for the Boards of Visitors across the state to raise tuitions.
The next business involved the Finance Committee's presentation of next year's budget. The report was given by senior Brendan McMarrow, the Chair of the Finance Committee, who led the seven other committee members in their decision regarding the budget. The Finance Committee had previously spent over 50 hours designing the budget and allocating next year's student activities fees.
"The rest of the committee and I made a conscious decision to avoid bias throughout the entire process," McMarrow said.
After the Finance Committee presented an overview of the budget and the significant changes that will affect it, the senate Finance Reform Committee expressed their concerns regarding the group's decisions. Sen. Jaime Reynolds from the Graduate School of Business presented the senate Finance Reform Committee's recommendations.
Many of the committee's concerns involved the decrease in the amount of money allotted for the cultural organizations on campus.
"One of the school's biggest goals is to increase diversity on campus," Reynolds said. "I think that decreasing the budgets for these groups will have a negative effect on this goal."
Another one of the committee's major concerns involved the amount of money allocated to the University Centers Activities Board. The senators said this was unfair to smaller organizations and set a bad precedent.
"UCAB requires more money because they consistently bring excellent events and speakers to campus," McMarrow said.
The senate and the Finance Committee discussed their conflicting opinions regarding the budget for over three hours and then the senators voted on what issues needed to be reexamined by the Committee.
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