Student Assembly Finance Commission
February 2nd, 2009
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, Cailen Casey, David Chu, Maddie Ehrlich, Elyse Feldman, Charlie Feng, Varun Gehani, Sam Miller-Little, Ian Lesyk, Michael McCormick, Taylor Mulherin, Yuliya Neverova, Lauren Nicola, Jonathon Raymond, Scott Rog, Benjamin Schreff, Cathy You, Dan Gusz, Vivien Pillet, Lauren Rosenblum, Cameron Scott

III. Business of the Day

Budget hearings/ Food/ SA-SAFC task force/ SLIC Conference/ Rationales/ Sample Budgets/ Vote on Sam

V. Gehani started off the meeting by reminding everyone about the budget hearings this weekend, and asked if everyone had signed up. He told the commissioners to be ready on Thursday by 4:15pm, and asked people to come early to help out. He also told the commissioners to let the co-chairs know if they knew they were going to be late.

Y. Neverova said that this semester’s budget hearing would be more hectic, especially with the greater amount of groups coming in.

C. Casey said that food would be available during the budget hearings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and went over the food options. He asked if anyone had any food allergies or was a vegetarian.

V. Gehani asked Tony Miller, who was present, to speak on behalf of the SA.

T. Miller said that for those who have not yet heard from the Daily Sun, the SA has set a moratorium on the creation of all new student groups, due to the redundancy of some groups and funding issues. He said that a new SA/SAFC task force was being created to monitor and assess the functioning of the SAFC. He said that this new group would be made up of four SA members and four SAFC commissioners, one of which had to be one of the executive board co-chairs. This group would meet on a daily basis, although no longer on Friday mornings. The SAFC members would be included in the SA as nonvoting members, and to provide their expertise and insight on behalf of the commission.

V. Gehani said to e-mail the executive board if any of the commissioners were interested in becoming involved.

Y. Neverova told the commissioners that she would be speaking about the different funding groups at the Student Leadership Institute at Cornell conference. She said that it would be held after the hearings for those whom were interested in coming.

E. Feldman asked how the budget hearings would work with so few SAFC members present.

Y. Neverova said that there would most likely be two or three commissioners at each table.

V. Gehani said that the hearings might go over more smoothly because the commissioners have had more experience with budget hearings from last semester.

Y. Neverova went over some of the things that the commissioners should note when filling in the allocations, such as the max allotted based on cap, negotiated rates, and the SAFC policies on funding for uniforms.

V. Gehani asked the commissioners not to rush during the hearings. He explained that the commissioners would have more time on the budget allocations because the meal breaks in between hearings will be cut shorter this semester.

Y. Neverova passed around samples of a bad and good budget. She asked the commissioners to analyze them for a few minutes. The commissioners then discussed the sample budgets.

Y. Neverova said that the commissioners now had to vote on Sam Miller-Little’s membership on the SAFC, who had been on-leave for over a year.

S. Miller-Little talked to the commissioners about his background in SAFC, and the reasons for his leave-of-absence. He then left the room.

VOTE: 17 voted for, and 0 voted against S. Miller-Little’s membership on the SAFC.

Y. Neverova reminded everyone to wear their t-shirts to the hearings.

IV. Meeting was adjourned at 5:40 pm.

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