For a few minutes the ASUO Senate was able to say that one of its committees budget’s was approved last night – even if only for it to end up back to square one.
During Wednesday night’s senate meeting, the body approved the EMU Board’s 4.41 percent budget increase. After its approval, ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz voiced his plans to veto the budget.
Dotters-Katz was in support of the budget only if he was allowed to review it with all of the other budgets so that he could be certain that none of the four committee budgets he was reviewing go over the 3.5 percent cap. According to the Green Tape Notebook – the ASUO’s handbook – the ASUO President only has three days to review the budget and send it to the UO administration after Senate has approved it.
The other budgets won’t be ready for approval until the next senate meeting, meaning that Dotters-Katz would have to look at the EMU Board’s budget separately from the other committees.
“I’m going to have to veto the budget,” Dotters-Katz said. “This has to be done as one thing, and I have to make sure that this fits under the cap. It has to be done that way.”
Although senate passed the budget, a portion of the body was still concerned that it wasn’t yet free from fiscal inefficiencies that could still be cut – specifically the $24,000 that was allocated to the Student Activity Resource Center.
“Personally I’m not in support of the $24,000,” Senator Helena Schlegel said. “I commend you for going under your benchmark but there is a cap, so every cut that can be made should be made.”
Senator Schlegel and Amy Jones made a point that since this is SARC’s first year as a program, giving them $24,000 seems like putting too much into a center that’s still working out how much money it actually needs to properly operate. Senator and EMU Board member Miles Sisk’s response was that SARC is a center that’s here to stay, and SARC will be an integral part in the new EMU.
“This is their first year, and they needed to experience how much they needed. Now they’ve realized that they’re not able to provide their services at this current service level,” Sisk said. “This budget that we’re asking for SARC is money that this program needs to operate every single year. Putting it off now just means that this is something that we’ll just be asking for year after year.”
Jones and Schlegel made an attempt to postpone the budget by tabling it, but both of their efforts failed. If Dotters-Katz does go through with his veto, then the EMU’s budget will be presented during the March 6 senate meeting with all of the other committee budgets.