The Associated Students of Madison’s Student Council voted Wednesday to require a 15 percent student body minimum voter turnout for capital building projects.
This issue was brought to the table due to concern the student body was not being fully represented in decisions for allocating segregated fees for capital building projects, such as the building of a new Union South and renovations to the Natatorium and Memorial Union.
According to committee member and Student Services Finance Committee Chair Kurt Gosselin, next year, students will be paying an additional $96 in segregated fees to build Union South and renovate Memorial Union, a decision coming from only 3 to 4 percent who voted in favor of the segregated fees.
“I fully support the minimum voter turnout. I think this is absolutely fantastic — it’s a safeguard. Levy the fee for everyone,” said Jeff Wright, SC representative and chair of the Constitutional Committee. “There’s a growing tendency to use segregated fee dollars to pay for deficits. I think with [minimum voter turnout] that we are being responsible, being responsive to what students are telling us to do.”
By putting into place the minimum voter turnout, if less than the minimum comes to vote, then regardless of the vote, segregated fees will not be spent on the building project.
Gosselin said it only takes students five minutes to vote online, making an impact on segregated fees that could last for years to come. Voting has traditionally been very low in past years, which is what ASM is trying to change with this new requirement.
Additionally, SC freshman representative Jamie Stark sponsored the creation of an ad-hoc outreach committee as part of ASM to increase student awareness and involvement in the organization
“This means a lot to me. We need to increase awareness in ASM and see some concrete action,” Stark said. “We need to explain to students why they should be involved, why it’s important to them, what [ASM] can do for them. This is an extremely important transition time, with the new office and possibly new constitution.”
The motion for the outreach committee was passed with the contingency that the committee would elect the chair, instead of Stark immediately being appointed for the position.
The internal budget for ASM was postponed after much debate. ASM’s current budget for the 2008-09 fiscal years is approximately $1 million with $700,000 going toward student organizations that deal with some sort of diversity, according to Gosselin.
“I encourage the committee, since next meeting we’ll be going over this for the fifth or sixth time, that we should find a better way of doing this,” said Legislative Affairs Chair Kevin Ott. “Even just using a laptop [to keep everything accurate].”
Freshman Steven Olikara was appointed diversity committee chair, and junior Mary Collins was appointed nominations board chair.
ASM also encourages students to go online to their blog and look at the constitution. The revisions and final draft will be presented at the meeting Dec. 3rd.
