USG Senate supports funding vetoes

By Gus Bode

One bill modified, second shot down

In two votes, the Undergraduate Student Government showed support for President Tequia Hick’s veto of two bills to fund Registered Student Organizations.

After passing in the senate, Hicks vetoed the bills Monday because of inconsistencies between constitutional guidelines and the funding requests.

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“I didn’t think it was consistent with the Student Activity Fee, and it is my responsibility not to pass it,” she said. “I made a judgment call.”

Hicks’ vetoes were supported by the senate when neither bill was passed in its original form.

The first organization affected, the Aviation Management Society, asked for a total of $3,252 in funding to cover food, keynote speaker transportation and lodging, advertising and facilities rental for the Aviation Management Society Dinner and career fair.

Following open debate and speeches from members as well as the Faculty Advisor David A. NewMyer, senators did not re-approve the old bill, but instead voted to remove the funding for facilities and re-vote.

The bill then passed without granting the $835 dollars AVS spent on renting four ballrooms in the Student Center.

Senator Dipali Patel said the bill to fund was not officially passed until Hicks had signed it, so USG was not “going back on their word.”

“We never funded it,” she said. “The senate approved the funding as a body, that doesn’t mean it has passed.”

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The second organization denied funding, the Agricultural Mechanization Club, received none of the anticipated $9,019 dollars to compete in a tractor building competition in June.

The money would have covered a new trailer to replace the 32-year-old one currently used by the club to haul the assembled tractors to the competition. Almost $1,500 of the money would have been used for tractor parts and supplies used in assembly.

Devin Hochgraber, the club’s president, said the club does not ask for the full amount of the competition every year, but the tractor no longer has electric brakes and has cracks in the exterior.

“We haven’t asked for the full amount each year,” he said. “We know it is an exorbitant amount, so we pay it out of our own pocket.”

Despite fundraising efforts, he said the club has not been able to raise the $7,581 needed for the new trailer alone.

“I think we ought to stick to our word,” said Senator Brad Fisher. “Without the cargo trailer, there is no event. And with no event there is no RSO, because that is their main purpose.”

The two vetoes of senate-approved bills to fund give USG a reason to examine past guidelines, said Vice President Nate Brown.

“These vetoes bring up some valid points,” he said. “We need to update the senate and the constitution… But, if she [Hicks] did not do this [veto], she would be in violation and could be impeached.”

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