ASG discusses budget transfers, minutes

Praise for the first-year formal last Saturday and general budget balance transfers were the main topics of a rather short general assembly.

Allegheny Student Government began its regular meeting at 7:02 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, in room 301/302 of the Henderson Campus Center. The meeting was seven minutes long, significantly shorter than their regular meetings due to the annual ASG candidate debate that followed.

The meeting was also missing eight senators, almost half of ASG’s legislative body. Not one class year had full representation in the senate. In addition, there were only seven cabinet members present.

Those absent included Chief of Staff Jason Ferrante, ’20, and Sophomore Class Senator Taylor Marzouca, ’21, who were preparing for the debate.

After being called to order by Vice President Gillian Greene, ’19, the minutes for last week’s meeting were approved with no constituent comments.

Director of Communications and Press David Roach, ’21, discussed election information.

“Keep your eyes out for election information,” Roach said. “Make sure people know that the voting happens, especially for the senior class. Make sure that all of your friends and constituents know that they can vote too because they’re technically the voice for the incoming first-year class.”

First-year Liaison Oz Meza, ’21, was the first to note the success of the First-Year Formal, which occurred this past Saturday night in Schultz Banquet Hall.

“I just wanted to recognize the first-years for the First-Year Formal being a big success,” Meza said.

Director of Finance Trevor Day, ’20, discussed balance transfers of significant funds of money. The finance committee wishes to move $7,000 from the speaker fund to the general fund.

“No one is really using the speaker fund like they did last year,” Day said. “People are drawing more money from the general fund, so it’s just better use for everyone.”

Day noted how the use of these funds was not too low, but emphasized the convenience of transferring the money. He also wishes to transfer $4,000 from the general fund to the executive fund due to an unforeseen expense from the American Student Government Association that was unaccounted for when making budget projections.

“This would compensate for that and have us be positive as far as the balance goes,” Day said. The request was motioned and approved.

There were no other reports from the cabinet members in attendance.

Class of 2022 Senator Jake Fleming expressed his satisfaction with First-Year Formal.

“We think we got about 75 to 100 people there, so we were impressed with that number,” Fleming said. “It was a pretty good event.”

ASG President Camila Gomez, ’19, brought up one notable change to the ASG website in her report: the change of the meeting minute postings.

“The minutes will be distributed to you on Sundays, so you can read through them and vote on them whether they’re correct or not on Tuesday,” ASG President Camila Gomez, ’19, said. “They will become public on Tuesdays once they’re approved by the body.”

At the beginning of the 2018-19 school year, Gomez wanted to increase ASG’s transparency on campus, so she made it a point to make meeting minutes more accessible to constituents.

Initially, she wanted the minutes to be posted 24 hours after the meeting ended. This most recent change was prompted due to unofficial and incomplete minutes being posted on the ASG website throughout the course of this semester. According to Gomez, this caused problems, so they simplified the process.

When asked about new business, Class of 2021 President Emma Godel pointed out how some campaign posters for the ASG presidency were torn down throughout Brooks Hall.

“Please keep your eyes out because campaign posters have been torn down, and that’s just really frustrating,” Godel said. “Just keep your eyes out because there are a lot of better ways to support a candidate.”

A motion to close the meeting was made, and the meeting was adjourned at 7:09 p.m.