MSA Senate passes 11 bills

Speaker Jonathan Mays wrote several proposals that all passed the Senate.

By Campbell Massie

Published Nov. 7, 2008

The Missouri Students Association Senate met for the second week in a row Wednesday to discuss and pass 11 bills pertaining to budget issues, supporting camera installation in residence halls and the hiring of a sustainability coordinator.

The week before, the Senate listened to a presentation from Speaker Jonathan Mays, in which he pointed out problems in the budgeting process. In the following days, Mays authored bills to address the problems.

"Students need to know how their money is spent," Mays said.

The first bill passed states that MSA supports the notion of gaining outside funding to speed up putting surveillance cameras in Laws, Lathrop and Jones residence halls.

According to the existing timeline, cameras would be installed in 2012, whereas outside funding could push the timeline up.

Another bill passed stated that a tuition and student fees question-and-answer section, detailing where tuition and student fees are spent, would be included in the MSA monthly e-mail. Another bill recommended the MU Budget Office tuition Web site include a rundown of student fees.

"I don't know why it hasn't been expected that students have that info at their fingertips," Mays said.

The Senate also approved a bill to create a publicity plan to recruit a wider pool of applicants for the Student Fee Review Committee. SFRC is one of the most powerful student groups on campus because all student fees requests originate there, Mays said.

The Senate approved a bill that asks a Web site be created to house the MSA budgets so the public can easily access them.

The senate also ratified legislation asking that an individual position be made accountable for the MSA department and committee budgets.

Senators adopted a bill asking that MSA make better use of the accounting system PeopleSoft. Mays said PeopleSoft is one of the most overlooked systems but it would allow for members to look at their budgets in real time. Although a lag time is present, Mays said he would like the Department of Student Activities and the Senate Operations committee to look into how long that lag is so they can work on streamlining the information.

A bill passed by the Senate strongly urges administrators to hire a sustainability coordinator. The wording of the bill was changed before ratification to make it clear that MU would be asked to fully fund the position.

A piece of legislation asks revenue-generating auxiliaries to create endowments with an initial of $25,000 investment. Recently, STRIPES created an endowment with a goal of eventually being financially independent. Senator Phyllis Williams proposed an amendment to the bill stating that certain organizations would not be asked to make revenue, just to be clear. The bill with the new amendment passed.

The Senate accepted a bill supporting the Division of Information Technology department's new student e-mail server plan to extend the life of existing domain names. This would give students the option to keep their student e-mail after graduation.

The final approved bill asked that a goal be set for future MSA fee recommendations and budget allocations of a 5 percent maximum carryover.

"I think it's hard to meet a goal if you haven't even set a goal in mind," Mays said.