By Signe K. Skinion

An Undergraduate Student Government resolution requesting a student activity fee increase and changing the general funding of registered student organizations is tabled for further examination, USG members say.

Also, seven senate bills clarifying what USG funds RSOs can and cannot ask for were passed at Wednesday’s USG Senate meeting.

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Andrew Ensor, Southern Hills senator and author of the tabled fee-increase bill, said he believes the bill will solve problems facing USG in the next few years.

Our problems are enrollment is declining, and there are less funds to utilize, Ensor said. We also have to deal with inflation pressure.

Ensor said his bill requests that each student pay an additional 85 cents in student activity fees for each semester during fiscal years 1997 through 1999.

Eric Bottom, USG Finance Committee chairman and College of Business senator, said Ensor’s resolution was referred to the Finance Committee for review, and the committee’s recommendation will be made at the next USG meeting.

We are going to be collecting some data to see what the feasibility is on a fee increase, Bottom said. Also, we would love to hear input from the student body to see if they are for or against a fee increase and see if they feel the increase is reasonable.

Bottom said the Finance Committee will also look at the part of the resolution asking to alter funding procedures for priority one RSOs.

Priority one RSOs are student organization that receive the most funding from USG.

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Bottom said it is too late to alter the funding procedures because the senate voted for a block allocation for the Black Affairs Council, Inter Greek Council, and the International Student Council Wednesday night.

Under the block allocation BAC, IGC, and ISC will receive a specified amount of funding instead of USG funding a percentage of the student activity fee.

Ensor said his resolution asks the senate to take 2 percent of the revenue allocated for smaller RSOs and give half to the Black Affairs Council and half to the Inter Greek Council. This resolution would not change the percentage funding for the Student Programming Council or the International Student Council.

He said because the senate also voted to create an advisory board to monitor the SPC funding and spending, all four priority one RSOs now have their funding procedures for fiscal year 1997. He said the funding procedures are awaiting approval from the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the SIU Board of Trustees.

Ensor said he believes altering RSO funding procedures is still necessary.

The SPC resolution is not going to pass GPSC, Ensor said. It’s pretty clear to me that GPSC isn’t going to give up one-third of their budget to fund SPC, and that will bring us back to square one.

Under the SPC resolution, the council will receive $3.60 per student each semester from the student activity fee. Because funding will come from the student activity fee, GPSC will technically be funding SPC $18,000 a semester.

The Graduate and Professional Student Council decided in its Wednesday night meeting that it will wait to vote on SPC funding until after they have had time to adequately examine the USG resolution and the effect it will have on the council.

GPSC will discuss and vote on the resolution at its Feb. 28 meeting.

In other business, the senate passed seven bills that clarify exactly what RSOs can and cannot ask for when requesting senate funding.

Bottom said the Finance Committee brought the seven bills to the senate floor to help RSOs better understand the funding process.

We (USG) are trying to give objective guidelines to the RSOs so they know exactly what’s fundable and what’s not fundable, Bottom said. We don’t want to waste their time filling out the forms and going through the process, only to be told no.’

Four of the bills said that personal membership dues, private lessons, fund-raising expenses and legal fees are not fundable through USG. One bill clarified the allocation guidelines for travel expenditures. Another bill that prohibits RSOs from giving allocated USG funding to another RSO when they are not co-sponsoring an event was also passed. The final bill establishes the block funding for three priority one organizations.

Scott Pfeiffer, USG chief of staff, said he believes these clarifications are part of the Finance Committee’s job.

They are holding themselves more accountable for their work, and these bills are needed and have been a long time coming, Pfeiffer said.