MSU's Council of Graduate Students met Wednesday for its first meeting of the school year and discussed the budget and future events.

COGS' budget was passed last April, but some members questioned a few of the expenses. A $1,500 expense for parking passes, $8,000 for four laptop computers and $500 for cell-phone service were the costs debated by members who thought the amounts allocated to these items were too much.

"Last time I saw, a Dell laptop computer cost only about $1,000," COGS member John Morris said. Morris wasn't a member in the spring.

The money for the items had already been spent, and some members expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the funds were allocated.

Members who objected to parking costs said members of the COGS E-board, the board who runs the day-to-day operations of COGS, should have to walk to their meetings on northern campus.

"Without that parking pass, I wouldn't be able to make it to my meetings and committees on time," Council President Kimberly Yake said.

The council put the issue to vote to try to regain the funding lost by returning the computers and the parking passes.

Members voted against recovering the money.

The council also went over plans for graduate student events during the school year.

COGS voted to join the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students, a group dedicated to graduate concerns. The group takes on yearly projects to help graduate students across the nation.

MSU's COGS Treasurer Carl Newman supported joining the group, citing its current project to help students earn money back on taxes by reporting their college related expenses.

"It's an exemption that we can take as a tax deduction," Newman said.