Point Park’s United Student Government (USG) spent the majority of their legislative body meeting discussing, approving, adopting and appointing guidelines, resolutions and a member.
The Finance Committee brought the “Official USG Guidelines for Budget Standards” to be approved and adopted, which was an outline to be upheld from this point on when creating club budgets.
“What we have here are just different standards about the traditional items that clubs request money for,” USG Vice President Gabe Dubin said.
The standards outlined the process of how funding for items such as advertisements, apparel, food, off campus events, prizes and transportation would be handled.
“The idea is that we want a consistent standard across the board when we choose to allocate to different clubs,” Dubin said.
According to the guidelines, partial funding will be granted to advertisements of events, uniforms, t-shirts and other forms of apparel, entry/ticket fees for off campus events and prizes USG deems as “an appropriate reflection of USG funds.”
USG made note in their standards that they would not fund food for meetings.
“While it is nice to have food for club members, food does not affect the continuation of the club. Food for events will be considered on an individual basis,” the “Official USG Guidelines for Budget Standards” stated.
The Rules Committee presented two resolutions to the legislative body for approval, which would mainly affect the internal affairs of USG.
The first resolution was a rewrite resulting from an issue in the Constitution stating that when the President Pro-Tempore would be elected, or assume a place apart from the legislative body, they would “retain the right to only one vote.” Now, as adopted by USG, “The office of President Pro-Tempore…shall retain voting rights.”
The second resolution adopted regarded chairpersons of Ad Hoc Committees (a committee created for a specific purpose or issue). According to the second resolution approved and adopted by USG, a chairperson would be “appointed by the President.” As with all appointments, it will be voted on by legislative body.
USG also appointed a new legislative body senator, sophomore Dylan Contrino as the School of Business At Large Representative.
As a political science major, Contrino hopes to bring his knowledge to generate innovation within USG.
“Over the last couple months I was able to sit in on the proposals and dealing with the clubs…I feel like there are a few things I could bring to the table and change to make it smoother,” Contrino said. “I have a very nice background in political advocacy and work so doing things like this [USG] really excite me and keep me energized.”
When USG attempted to appoint a new advisor, Andre Roberts, a graduate assistant and intern working in the SAIL Office, an issue arose. Before the oath to be appointed as an advisor could be taken, USG Parliamentarian Charles Murria reviewed what the USG Constitution stated regarding advisors.
“I was just reviewing the advisor section and it says all advisor nominations are due the second meeting of the academic year,” Murria said during the meeting.
The solution for adding an additional advisor will be discussed in the Rules Committee, and will likely result in a change to the Constitution.
“We find it better to change our bylaws to reflect what’s going on at the time,” Murria said. “This week I’m really going to try to change the bylaws to reflect what the legislative body and executive cabinet wants to do.”
Treasurer Amber Mole also made note that there is still $7,480 left in the budget to allocate for clubs or other needs. However, the rollover amount from last funding period into the current funding period has yet to be determined as receipts are continuing to be processed.
President Hennigan will be attending the next USG legislative body meeting Monday to discuss Point Park’s newest strategic plan and other projects the university is working on.
