By RAEGAN NEUFELD
Tiger Media Network
Two agenda items were moved to emergency business at the Student Government Association meeting Thursday night.
Senators passed a bill that authorizes immediate use of $5,500 from the SGA budgetary reserves to fund an initiative to provide free period products in the bathrooms of academic buildings. They also passed a waiver that allows SGA to consider the Center for Empowering Victims of Gender-based Violence for funds when requested, even though the group is not yet recognized by Student Engagement.
President Ella Burrows, who has been working on the free period product initiative since the beginning of the semester, introduced the bill. She explained that it needed to be moved to emergency business because she had not anticipated the initiative moving forward so quickly.
“I assumed because of all the red tape and bureaucracy in higher education it would take us at least a year to complete this project,” she said. “But lucky for us, this went way faster and we’re ready to purchase the products.”
Burrows’ originally planned to pay for the necessary dispensers and products with money SGA receives from student fees. However, that would require a fee increase, which is not able to be done until the spring. Using money from the SGA budgetary reserves allows the dispensers and products to be ordered now.
“In the spring when we do our fee reviews, our fee will get raised to replenish the reserve,” Burrows said.
To cover the cost of the initiative, SGA plans to ask for a 5-cent increase in its student fees for next school year. It then will need to be voted on and approved by senators in the annual student fee funding request bill.
This increase is supported by 96.2% of 860 students who responded to a survey sent out Sept. 25.
Treasurer Jackson Sinsel explained the waiver for the Center for Empowering Victims of Gender-based Violence prior to the senators’ vote.
According to Sinsel, a waiver is needed for SGA to consider funding requests from groups that are not recognized as a student organization by Student Engagement. The CEVGV received a previous waiver in January, which expired on June 30. The new waiver is set to expire on the same date of next year.
“We’ve encouraged them to go talk to Student Engagement and get registered,” Sinsel said. “I think they have seven members, which is enough to get registered.”
With the waiver passed, a bill to provide funding for an upcoming CEVGV trip was able to be introduced.
In other news, SGA is hosting three events in the coming weeks.
- LGBTQ+ History Month Bracelet Making – 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. this coming Thursday in the Memorial Union Trails Room. Co-sponsored by the Gender and Sexuality Alliance.
- Trunk or Treat – Halftime of the FHSU football game on Oct. 28.
- Open Forum – 5 p.m. on Nov. 1 in the Memorial Union Ballroom. Panelists will include Provost Jill Arensdorf, Vice President for Student Affairs Joey Linn, Assistant Director of Residential Life Nathan Dozier and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs David Bollig.
SGA will meet again next week at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Black and Gold Room. Location is subject to change.