Council Clippings: GSS passes two funding bills by unanimous vote
Tuesday's meeting of the Graduate Student Senate saw two funding bills passed unanimously.
Before considering either of them, the fifteen senators in attendance, Executive Vice President Carl Yerger and President Brock Wester listened to guest speaker Michael Edwards, director of Campus Recreation.
Edwards explained to the senate that a new bill listed under New Business, titled "Joint Allocation to Georgia Tech Student Center," concerned the need for the Student Center to replace its fleet of vans.
"New rules and regulations the state has put upon us has lead both the CRC and Student Center to consider other methods of providing the van services to [campus organizations]," Edwards said.
Edwards said that an independent analysis is currently being conducted and that he will be coming forward with "a new proposal on the way we do business with vans."
After Edwards was finished, Yerger spoke about the recent graduate picnic. He also reminded senators to check the bill system on Sundays to see if there were outstanding bills that needed a senator's signature.
Wester spoke next and urged senators to find others who might be interested in filling some of the open positions in the Senate. He also addressed some of the confusion regarding the ticketing policy, commended Tech on its placement in Newsweek's college rankings, and reported that the Institute set a record this past year with $730 million in research funding.
Next Varun Prasad, Joint Finance Committee chair, addressed the Senate about how to format the funding section of bills. The new format contains two columns, one for the amount requested from SGA and one for the total price, which is the total amount that the line item costs.
Senator Mitch Keller, health services chair, spoke about insurance cards and asked those who have not received theirs in the mail to contact him. Next, Senator Kapil Gupta, internal affairs chair, reminded the Senators that the deadline for election applications is next Monday for students interested in joining the Senate. Senator Kishor Gupta, Student Welfare chair, informed the Senators about a LaTeX class that day. Senator Jess Chandler, academic affairs chair, reminded senators that an Academic Affairs Committee meeting is coming up on Sept. 20.
Finally John Bowen, Joint Campus Organization Committee (JCOC) chair, announced that the JCOC is currently recruiting graduate students to participate in JCOC.
At this point the Senate began to address the bills on the agenda under Old Business. The first was titled "Joint Allocation to Students of Objectivism." Fred Zahrn, a representative from the organization, told the Senate that his organization will be hosting Elan Journo, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute on Sept. 20, where his talk will be titled "The Road to 9/11." He requested $500 for the speaker fee and $112.50 for a promotional ad in the Technique. The Senate approved the bill unanimously.
The second bill was "Joint Allocation to Musicians Network." Ryan James, head engineer of Under the Couch, informed the Senate that a recent power surge in the Couch building damaged some equipment due to the poor power system in the building. The bill requested $149 for a power conditioner, $99 for an uninterruptible power supply, and $399.99 for a Delta 1010 audio interface, which the JFC recommended amending down to $200 since the Musicians Network has already received some money for the damage. The amendment unanimously passed.
Senator Grant Farmer moved to strike the cost of the audio interface until it was clear whether Institute insurance covered it. In the ensuing discussion, Barbara Hanschke, director of finance of Auxiliary Services, replied that the deductible for the insurance plan likely was in the tens of thousands of dollars, far exceeding the cost of the device. As a result, there was no second to the motion, and the bill passed unanimously.
Bills passed:
- Joint Allocation to Students of Objectivism
- Joint Allocation to Musicians Network
