Student Assembly Finance Commission
November 3rd, 2008
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

Lee Blum, Jack Castle, Cailen Casey, David Chu, Maddie Ehrlich, Elyse Feldman, Charlie Feng, Charlie Feng, Danielle Fernandes, Benjamin Finkle, Stanley Gartshein, Varun Gehani, Chris Hilbert, Ian Lesyk, Michael McCormick Shirley McCrohan, Taylor Mulherin, Yuliya Neverova, Scott Rog, Benjamin Schreff, Arthi Sridharan, Huiling Yu, Dan Gusz, Alex James, Lauren Jennings, Vivien Pillet, Lauren Rosenblum, Cameron Scott, Qing Zhao

III. Business of the Day

Icebreaker/ Voting for Guideline Changes

E.Feldman started off the meeting with an icebreaker.

T.Mulherin then introduced the business of the day, which was to address the changes to the guidelines. He passed around several packets amongst the commission, and said that these resolutions to simplify the structure of the SAFC Appeals would be discussed to make sure that everyone has agreed upon them.

The commission discussed the changes in the packets amongst themselves.

J.Castle said that next week they would be presenting these resolutions the Student Assembly. He went over briefly the main points of these changes, including SAFC’s policies for funding charity events and travel.

A.James proposed to change the wording in one of the sections of the handbook.

J.Castle explained that the wording of the resolutions is not necessarily going to be used in editing the handbook, but to be used as a source of clarification for the Student Assembly.

J.Castle proposed changes to Article 2, section 2.5 of the handbook.

The commission was unanimously in favor of these changes.

J.Castle proposed changing the title of Article 4 from “Hearings” to “Budget Hearings”.

The commission unanimously agreed with this change as well.

J.Castle proposed changing Article 6, section 3.1 so that student organizations must sign up and attend its appeal hearing, or else the Commission will reject the appeal. He asked if there were any suggestions.

The commission unanimously was in favor of this resolution.

T.Mulherin presented the proposal of clarifying SAFC’s charity funding policy, so that the Commission will fund for events that raise money for charity, but SAFC funding itself will not go directly to charity.

The commissioners were all in favor of this proposal.

T.Mulherin next proposed that if funding is requested for air travel of speakers, performers, or coaches, documentation of airfare costs must be included as well as the travel mileage. The handbook will be further clarified so it is stated that the SAFC funds for the lesser of either the Internal Revenue Service rate or the documented airfare costs. Also, the exact number of people traveling must be included in the applicant’s advisor letter.

The commission unanimously agreed with these changes.

L.Rosenblum asked how the commission will deal with price fluctuations if a group buys a plane ticket ahead of time.

T.Mulherin said that the commission would still fund for the lesser of the two.

The commission further discussed the issue of how this funding policy would work.

J.Castle and T.Mulherin agreed that this policy needed to be further resolved.

Lastly, T.Mulherin proposed to change the wording of Article 9, section 5.3 regarding art supplies.

The commission agreed with these changes.

The co-chairs thanked all the commissioners, and reminded everyone that this was the last general body meeting of the semester, and that the executive board would be having one last meeting after Thanksgiving break.

Pizza was served.

IV. Meeting was adjourned at 5:40 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
Valerie Pocus
SAFC Clerk, Office of the Assemblies