SGB votes on allocations bill, discusses student services

Student Government Board voted on a new allocations bill and discussed the “Tracy” proposal and various student services at their weekly meeting. 

SGB unanimously voted for Allocations Bill 2023-3 at Tuesday’s meeting. This bill notes that the Board will use expected attendance as a key factor when approving requests. Going forward, SGB will carefully review each request that has a high cost per person.

“It just means that now we’re going to use expected attendance as a factor for events requesting allocations funding,” Vice President of Operations Sarah Siddiqui said. “We’re going to heavily scrutinize any events that are requesting more than $100 per [attendent] of the event for speaker events. And that the rationale behind that is because every student pays $100 per semester into the Student Activities fee. That’s where we chose the number 100.” 

SGB President Ryan Young explained that the board has received an influx of allocations requests.

“I want to have a few remarks on our allocations process,” Young said. “We’re actually receiving about twice as many requests week to week compared to last year, which is great. Unfortunately, that does mean that we need to kind of take some actions to make sure that we can equitably distribute the $900,000 we have to allocate through that process. So starting next week, we’re going to be more strictly scrutinizing shared responsibility in the cost benefit analysis in each request.”

Siddiqui encouraged students to use the conference fund, a fund separate from the allocations pool with a focus on conferences, for requests that may not fit within the allocations manual. 

“It’s really nice that, if you’re just an individual and just going to present research at a conference because you were invited there, you can just apply,” Siddiqui said. “Students do a lot of work on campus and they do a lot of research. and it’s important that they have the opportunity to actually go to conferences and present their work.”

SGB is working on trying to bring the “Tracy” proposal, which enforces a zero-tolerance policy in terms of sexual misconduct for athletes, to campus. 

“We’re working to submit a proposal to athletics to embrace the Tracy rule, which is a kind of a more clear policy on what to do with serious misconduct with athletes,” Young said. “The reason it’s so important is because student athletes serve as representatives of the community. Right now, the athletics policy around serious misconduct, unless it’s a felony, it’s up to the discretion of athletics on how they handle it. And so [the Tracy proposal] would be a very clear policy — it’s no tolerance.” 

Siddiqui announced that SGB legal services are now available on campus, where students can schedule an appointment with a lawyer. 

“I’m happy to announce that the SGB legal services are up and running for the fall term,” Siddiqui said. “Essentially it’s just an opportunity for students to get a free 20-minute consultation with a lawyer. It’s really important for us to be that bridge between students and a lawyer whenever they have questions or anything like that.” 

Vice President of Policy Sarah Mayer said she is currently working on making certain resources, like Naloxone and menstrual products, more accessible on campus and in residence halls.

“I’m in the early stages of working with board members and other outside organizations about bringing care and resource packages to residence halls regarding menstrual products,” Mayer said. “I recently reached out to the Allegheny County Health Department to find out more about Naloxone and if we can get that into our residence halls.” 

Allocations:

Phi Alpha Delta made an allocations request. The board postponed this request. 

Chemicube requested $3,217.81 to attend a competition in Orlando. The board approved this request in full.

Pittsburgh Electric Propulsion requested $4,245.66 for equipment. The board approved this request in full.

Mastana Fusion Dance requested $1,494 for costumes. The board approved this request with revisions. 

SCENE requested $20,993.82 for film equipment. The board approved this request in full.

Black Action Society requested $40,000 dollars to bring Tyler James Williams to campus. The board approved this request in full.