Student Assembly Finance Commission
October 31st, 2005
5:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
163 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

The Meeting was called to order at 5:00 p.m.

II. Roll Call

Commissioners 10/31/05 Angad Bhai A Jeffrey Cohan A Jillian Dorans P Michael Eisner A Liz Falcone P Erica Fischer A Lisa Gilbertson P Sorby Grant P Steve Hecht A David Lederman P Sean MacGregor A Raj Maniam P Scottie McQuilkin P Kate Miller P Nadia Ormsby P Spencer Pepper A Carlos Perez A Ashwin Phadins ON LEAVE Dana Sckolnick P Caitlin Shetter P Eric Schulman P Anastasiya Sidorva P Riti Singh ON LEAVE Kate-Lynn Timmermans P Evan Walker P Marissa Wilson P Soyeon-Yu P Joey Zielinski P

III. Business of the Day

Attendance Issues and Rewriting the Handbook

L. Falcone started off reminding all the commissioners that the e-board elections will take three to four hours next week. She then mentioned that the current e-board voted to not grant any special project requests since the SAFC has no money. The SAFC, however, will still accept category transfer requests she said. She added that commissioners should start recruiting for the SAFC, the applications are online, and the applications will be due the 17th of November with the interviews will be November 19th.

K. Timmermans moved on to talk about the attendance issues. She mentioned that the policy for the SAFC is three unexcused and five excused and after that the person is off the commission; they can however be voted back on. She said it would take a two-thirds majority to vote the members back on. Michael Eisner and Carlos Perez are the commissioners who are in trouble.

D. Sckolnick asked if Mr. Eisner was even on the SAFC anymore.

K. Timmermans replied yes.

M. Wilson mentioned that the commission can not talk about the issue until those students are present. The attendance issues are then tabled for later.

L. Falcone said that Ms. Nadolny had a very productive meeting last Monday discussing the President and Treasurer’s Handbook. The packet laid before each commissioner contains all of the corrections/changes. Ms. Falcone asked each commissioner to go through and read the changes, and then she said that they would comment on each category afterwards.

-Committee reads for five minutes.

Category 1

E. Walker asked if the SAFC funded for databases online.

M. Wilson replied that the way the handbook talks about the databases was fine right now until it become a more pertinent issue.

E. Walker replied that the SAFC should make a clause just for databases.

J. Zielinski said that the SAFC could cap the cost as it costs about $10 a month.

L. Falcone said that now, for databases, the cap would be $50 for the semester cap. She added that there will be a clause saying that this only applies when it is an online database that is essential to the group.

A. Sidorova said that this category should mention that the free advertisement the SAFC pays for is only one-quarter page.

Category II

L. Falcone said that for the “proof of contact” that is asked for, the SAFC should also ask for the point from which the speaker is actually coming from.

S. McQuilkin said that the mileage written down did not reflect the changes the SAFC voted on early in the semester.

L. Gilbertson said there was also a lot of confusion over whether or not the SAFC can fund a program with no proof of speaker. Therefore, she said, the SAFC should require some sort of proof.

M. Wilson agreed.

L. Gilbertson added that proof of room rental was acceptable proof.

K. Nadolny asked if the SAFC funds banners.

Response: Only if is in over the Cornell store.

L. Falcone said that there were some issues with room rentals. She added that the SAFC should require some proof that the space is available and what the exact dates were.

Category III

D. Lederman said that any banner requests should be handled in this category.

K. Miller said that any durable good that is publicity is bad.

L. Gilbertson said that we do not fund for props or decorations since they are not durable goods.

S. McQuilkin asked if groups should have some sort of proof that the books they are trying to buy are not in the library.

Reply: Yes.

S. McQuilkin also asked if the SAFC should put a cap on the number of books a group is allowed to buy.

L. Gilbertson said that this was not fair.

S. McQuilkin offered the solution of just making the groups have proof they need that many books.

S. Grant said that by writing down the cap on books the guidelines were becoming too excessive.

K. Nadolny countered by saying that it makes the SAFC less subjective.

L. Gilbertson added that “it’s still not fair”.

K. Nadolny concluded by saying that the groups should just have some proof they need it.

S. Yu said that since the SAFC does not fund for tax, it should be writing down in this category.

Category IV

S. Grant said that if the SAFC tries to limit non-word documents as proof, most groups will just forge something else.

K. Nadolny said that the SAFC will just have to trust each group. She then changed her mind and said the SAFC could just take out that clause.

K. Miller asked that the SAFC add that current documentation as proof is preferable to past documentation.

Category V

-There was no discussion about this category.

Endnotes

S. Grant said that “We reserve the right to be subjective” seems quite sketchy.

M. Wilson said that is was meant to make the groups get more official things as proof.

L. Falcone concluded by thanking the entire commission for showing up and contributing.

IV. Meeting ended at 5:55 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
Daniel Kantor
SAFC Clerk, Office of the Assemblies