On Sunday, Georgetown University Student Association confirmed three of the five commissioners for the new GUSA Fund and passed legislation regarding the allocation of the GUSA Fund as well as new campaign procedures.
The senate voted to confirm the appointment of Chris Butterfield (MSB ’12), Murphy Kate Delaney (COL ’13) and Robert Benkert (MSB ’12) as commissioners after a question-and-answer session and debate. The commissioners were confirmed by the members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee before the senate vote on Sunday.
The commissioners will be in charge of allocating the $30,000 GUSA Fund, which was developed by GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) and Vice President Jason Kluger (MSB ’11) and voted into existence by the senate in November.
The goal of the fund is to provide a source of funding for student organizations other than the current Funding Board, which consists of five advisory boards, the Georgetown Program Board and the members of the Finance and Appropriations Committee.
All three candidates have some funding experience; Butterfield and Delaney serve on InterHall and Benkert works for Hilltop Consultants.
The GUSA Executive chose the candidates, along with two others who have not yet been confirmed because they were unable to attend Sunday’s meeting, from over 50 applicants. The candidate selection process was name-blind.
At the meeting, the senate also voted to finalize the transfer of $26,000 to the GUSA Fund account. The Funding Board approved the transfer to the fund in December with the stipulation that GUSA would provide $4,000 out of its own general fund.
In the original wording of the legislation, $1,500 was to be set aside for activities related to the arts, diversity and civic engagement, respectively. After a period of debate, however, the amount was raised to $3,000 for each of these areas, raising the total amount of allocated money to $9,000.
The senate also voted to return any unspent money from the GUSA Fund into the general fund at the end of each year.
oreover, the senate voted to require candidates for GUSA president to submit a tentative budget for the following year and present their proposed budget in a debate.
Originally the legislation only required the candidates to create a budget for GUSA, but it was changed to include the whole student activities budget, which reflects the greater role the GUSA Executive will have in determining the budget if the funding reform bill passes next week.
If the bill passes, the GUSA Executive, along with GPB and the five advisory boards – which represent the Student Activities Commission, the Media Board, the Center for Social Justice, the Performing Arts Council and Club Sports – will present budgets no later than 21 days after the President and Vice-President are sworn in, which will then be considered and put to a vote by the Finance and Appropriations Committee.
In the past, the brief time period between the confirmation of the president and vice president and the presentation of the GUSA budget for the following year has caused problems.
Last year, a controversy concerning the election in which two pairs of candidates were temporarily disqualified due to a second violation of campaign poster placement rules resulted in delays. The president and vice president from the previous year, Pat Dowd (SFS ’09) and James Kelly (COL ’09), were forced to submit a budget for this year since Angert and Kluger had not yet been sworn in.
“Last year Calen and Jason were not given the chance to present their own budget. This is great for the media and allows us to hit the ground running with an idea of a budget,” said Sen. Chris Pigott (COL ’12). “
