Student Congress Chronicle: Sept. 21

The Finance Committee of Student Congress met Tuesday evening in Murphey Hall at 6:30 p.m.

Eight voting members attended the meeting and debated 11 funding requests made by various campus organizations.

All requests, though most were slightly amended, were approved by the Finance Committee aside from a request made by an Indian dance group, the Bhangra Elite, which was reported without prejudice to the full congress.

The committee began the semester with $68,000 and is now left with $44,428.60, said Chelsea Miller, chairwoman of the committee.

Requests included an appeal from College Republicans to fund an event in which Chris Baron will come to speak about GOProud, an organization of homosexual Republicans.

The request was made for $1,500 but was reduced to $750. Representative Greg Steele and GLBTSA representative Alex Kilkka appealed to the fact that this was a great diversity opportunity for the UNC campus.

In addition, the largest request for funding was made by the Bhangra Elite. The North Indian competitive dance team requested $5,579.64. The bulk of the request was for new costumes to be used in competitions this semester.

Representatives explained that the costumes and equipment will be passed on each year and are fundamental to the group’s ability to compete. Competitions are their largest source of generated funds, they said. The committee moved to report the request without prejudice.

A lone bill was proposed by Miller. It sought to standardize the process of submitting requests to the Finance Committee. The bill was approved by the committee, making it so that only treasurers of organizations, who have passed a standardized competency test, can submit an finance requests.

The Finance Committee uses four guidelines to evaluate requests, Miller said. They are, in order of importance: representation, vitality, specialization and amount of generated funds.

All approved requests are passed on to a meeting of the full Student Congress for a vote.