ASMSU adopted a 22-page set of financial bylaws last week, updating the three-page document created in 1992.
The new bylaws alleviate some procedural problems, but do not specify money distribution guidelines.
With $12,500 remaining for the undergraduate student government for spring semester, finance committee Chairperson Andy Schepers said the old financial bylaws needed to be revamped because they were too vague and didn’t give the organization enough direction about how money should be spent.
ASMSU’s Student Assembly passed the bylaws unanimously the first time they were introduced at Thursday’s meeting after the finance committee worked on them for about five months.
One addition says any money not allocated to a specific department will be split equally among ASMSU’s Programming Board, Funding Board and the Special Projects account, an account the Student Assembly controls.
The sections were added to the bylaws to better organize and clarify financial matters, Schepers said.
Another addition to the bylaws says they will be enforced unless waived by an unanimous vote in both the finance committee and Student Assembly.
“We made it so it would be really hard to waive unless something really happened,” Schepers said.
ASMSU’s Funding Board Comptroller Jim Cinglie said that will stop Student Assembly from giving registered student organizations money - a job that Funding Board was appointed to do with a set of guidelines.
“They’ve taken the steps to fix the problem, and it probably will be fixed next year,” Cinglie said. “But the reality is, we have 20 (registered student organizations) this year that weren’t able to receive any money. Our hands were tied, and the money was given out to other groups who didn’t have to wait in line.”
Liisa Bergmann, who is a member of the environmental group ECO, said Funding Board is the main source of money for ECO events.
“I understand the Funding Board’s frustration at the Student Assembly and Academic Assembly for not following the rules they set up for themselves,” the environmental policy junior said. “However, the $3,000 maximum allowed allotment that Funding Board may grant is simply far too little money to fund a large campus event.”
ASMSU finance committee member Charles Beachnau said the organization will continue to have budget problems until a performance-based budget is established. The performance-based budget measures how many students are benefiting from that money.
Beachnau said funding 60 out of 500 organizations each year is not efficient because only a small portion of groups receive money.
“If General Motors and Microsoft didn’t have a performance-based budget, they would be broke,” said the Student Assembly College of Natural Science representative. “If we had a performance budget, we wouldn’t have to ask for a $3 tax increase.”
