Upcoming bills may affect student fees, appropriations and SBP election

Student Congress committees debated several bills Tuesday that could affect how student groups obtain money in the future.

These bills will be voted on at next week’s full-body Congress meeting.

Some of the bills are intended to correct the current problems with the budgetary process.

“We’re trying to make it easier for everyone to understand and get funding,” said Dakota Williams, Student Congress’ speaker.

Money was especially tight in this year’s annual budget. Organizations submitted requests for a total of about $945,000. Student Congress pared these requests down to fit its $365,000 budget.

Committee members discussed bills on the following subjects:

Increased fees

This bill would allow the student body to vote on a referendum regarding raising student fees.

If the full Congress approves the bill, students would vote whether to increase the student activities fee from $39 to $42.

A $6 increase to the same fee was defeated in the Feb. 9 election. Williams said he thought it would be easier to pass a smaller fee increase.

If the proposed bill is passed by full Congress, students would vote on it by April 25. The bill was reported favorably by members to full Congress.

Budget process

This bill would decrease the percentage of money available during the annual budget process.

Under the current system, 80 percent of the funds is distributed in the annual appropriations process and the rest during subsequent appropriation throughout the year.

With the proposed system, subsequent appropriations would increase to 65 percent of the general reserve and the annual budget would drop to 35 percent.

During the annual budget process, many groups’ requests were cut because they did not have specific events and speakers arranged.

“That’s a long time to be planning ahead for groups that might not have leadership yet for next year,” Williams said.

He added that placing an emphasis on subsequent appropriations would allow groups more time to plan events and request funding.

The bill was reported favorably by members to full Congress.

Online publications

This bill would provide a monetary incentive to encourage publications to produce more online editions. Under the new system, a publication would receive additional funding if it prints online issues.

The goals of this new system are to encourage online reading and reduce printing costs.

“Hopefully this is taking us in the direction of eventually phasing out print publications,” said representative Alex Mills, who introduced the bill.

The bill was reported favorably by members to full Congress.

Elections system

Congress also debated a new way of conducting elections. Under the proposed voting system, student could rank their choices for student body president and eliminate the need for runoffs.

A similar system is already in place at N.C. State University.

Student Body President Jasmin Jones has said she will veto the legislation. It already went before full Congress, which sent it back to the rules and judiciary committee for further tweaking.

Some members raised concerns about whether the system would function correctly, or if it is necessary.

The bill was reported without prejudice to full Congress, meaning members did not recommend it either favorably or unfavorably.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.