On Wednesday, January 23rd, Student Government Association officially began their Spring Senate semester with some argument and confusion.

Although this was the official start for the Senate’s semester, some funding bills were considered during an unofficial SGA meeting over the break. Of the six bills considered, five were student fees funding bills, which must be passed through a student fees committee before reaching the Senate. The other bill was an individual funding request.

“The meeting was done in good faith by the President in the stead of the Senate,” said Legislative Director Darren Beckham. This means that even though the meeting did not meet quorum, the minimum number of members required for Senate, the President was given the power to make the final decisions. “There was one person that voted ‘no’ on one funding bill. Everything else did not meet with any verbal contention,” said Beckham.

“The only reason that I thought it was prudent to hold this meeting was because some of these funding bills needed attention because deadlines were approaching for the groups needing funding,” said SGA President Luis Carbajal.

Three of the student fees funding bills were over the amount of 5,000 dollars and therefore must be reconsidered in Wednesday’s meeting. The other two bills were under the amount of 5,000 dollars and will be considered passed by the Senate.

Another point of argument had to do with the upcoming Higher Education day, which will be taking place on February 10th in Lawrence, KS and the 11th in Topeka. A group from SGA will be meeting with members from other schools within the state in order to lobby higher education issues to the State Legislature at the Capitol. The issues to be considered are concealed carry on campuses, illegal immigrants getting higher education and the return on investment in higher education.

Legislative Director Darren Beckham presented the issues but faced some frustration from some other members of Senate on how these issues were presented and the fact that no resolutions had been passed on these issues. After some long-winded arguments and debate, the decision was made to present more information on the issues in the coming weeks to keep SGA informed and in sync.