By Susannah Waite, Editor-in-Chief
Student leaders from the Student Government Association and the law school have settled their financial feud.
Student government and bar association officials resolved their conflict Jan. 26. They are waiting to see if the Student Senate agrees with their compromise.
The agreement, which would not take effect until Fall 2013, will go to the Student Senate as a bylaws amendment on Feb. 12. Student Senate meets at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall in Tom and Brenda McDaniel University Center.
The issue stems from wording in SGA’s bylaws which affected the amount of funding granted this year to the Student Bar Association. It resulted in about a $20,000 cut from the law group’s budget.
Senators failed a bill Nov. 13 that would have re-established the funding process.
Sen. Edgars Boitmanis (president pro tempore) authored the bill proposing a bylaw amendment.
“This procedure was negotiated and agreed on in a bilateral meeting between SBA and OCU-SGA leadership on Jan. 26,” the bill reads.
“I am definitely really happy we came to an agreement,” Boitmanis said.
The proposed amendment allocates 80 percent of the law school’s contribution to SGA back to the law association. The remaining 20 percent would stay with SGA.
The law association also would reimburse SGA for law student participation in events hosted by Student Activities Council, according to the bill.
“The total amount to be billed within one school year shall not exceed 15 percent of the Law School contribution to SGA,” the bill reads.
“The bill I submitted has to sit on the floor for one week,” Boitmanis said. “This gives senators a chance to ask me questions and at the Feb. 12 meeting they vote.”
Amendments to the bylaw change cannot be accepted.
“Not everyone agrees with it, but an agreement needed to be reached,” Boitmanis said. “Hopefully two-thirds of the senators will approve it.”
If approved, the amendment would not provide funding to the law association until the fall.
“We have taken multiple actions this year to restore funding to SBA to the level they received in previous years,” Boitmanis said.
SGA allotted $9,000 to the law association in the Spring 2013 budget.
Because of the lack of funding, the law association cut several events including an annual golf tournament.
“We are planning various networking events, and, at our first budget meeting, we awarded money for the Native American Law School Association to attend a competition in Oregon,” said Zeb Judd, third-year law and Student Bar Association president.
The organization would receive less money overall under the new agreement, but members are “pretty happy with the agreement overall,” Judd said.
“We’re in a lot better shape than we were at the beginning of this year,” Judd said. “Now we know how much we can budget without it being a big surprise.”
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