Take this seriously please: All Congress members should attend budget meetings

The poor level of attendance at this weekend's Student Congress budget proposal meetings is simply not acceptable.

One of Student Congress' most important roles is allocating more than $300000 in student fees to campus organizations and groups.

But only about seven of the 34 members of Congress were present at any point during their meetings Saturday and Sunday.

During last weekend's meetings Congress was charged with drafting a proposal for next year's $353917 budget.

This is Congress' most important role and has the most direct impact on student life at the University.

Thorough and lively debate is essential during these proceedings particularly when drafting something as significant as next year's budget proposal.

More extensive deliberation is especially needed as Congress got requests for twice as much money as it has to give.

 The proposal slices some organization budget requests by more than 75 percent.

Although Congress was able to draft a budget proposal that will fund student organizations pending approval tonight we can only imagine the meager level of debate that a seven-member meeting must have had.

Apparently" the majority of our representatives didn't feel that their input was necessary.

 ""This is generally the number of people that show up"" said Tim Nichols, speaker of Student Congress.

So what is the point of even having a Student Congress"" if scarcely more than 20 percent of its members are capable of showing up distribute funds on behalf of the students who elected them?

Members of Student Congress are elected to represent and work hard on behalf of the student body.

And this was one of the most important meetings that Congress had.

It is the job of each and every elected official to be present at these congressional meetings. Serving the students is their first and foremost obligation.

We sincerely hope next year's Congress will put forth a greater effort to actually show up at their meetings and demonstrate their eagerness to represent the students' voice.