The Associated Students of Madison Student Council approved tying stipends for leadership positions to tuition rates and approved the creation of a new Rules Committee at its meeting Wednesday night.

The stipend bylaw change would set ASM leaders’ pay to the previous year’s tuition because the tuition rate is usually set by the UW System Board of Regents in the summer. The increases in pay could not be more than 15 percent each year, even if tuition rises more sharply.

The bylaw passed unanimously at last week’s meeting, but there was some debate Wednesday.

Representative Colin Ingram said the way that ASM position stipends are paid should be discussed each year. He called for the vote to be postponed until next session so it could be discussed further.

“Unfortunately this debate takes up a lot of our time, but I think that it should be had anyway. If the stipends are going to be increased it should be debated every year from the standpoint of why we’re increasing them,” Ingram said.

SSFC Chair Brandon Williams said he was in favor of the stipend bylaw because it was not about removing debate, but about determining the value of each position, which would be debated each year.

He added this stipend change should not be punted to next session because it had already been discussed and voted on in this session.

Also at the meeting, Rep. Eric Hoyt was removed from the council for having five unexcused absences, according to Secretary Kurt Gosselin.

There was some confusion over whether Hoyt had five unexcused absences. He received an excused absence for a meeting in March when he was going to be attending an ASM event. However, Gosselin said they were informed he did not go to the event.

Freshman Rep. Max Love questioned whether the council could really know Hoyt was not at the ASM event.

The council also approved the creation of a Rules Committee for next year that would review ASM’s bylaws and decisions.

ASM Chair Tyler Junger said he was glad the Rules Committee passed.

“I think this is a very good idea and something I can’t believe that ASM hasn’t had something like this before,” Junger said. “I’m amazed ASM doesn’t have someone actually looking at our rules.”

The council also received the Finance Committee Operations Grant recommendation for funding student organizations for the 2010-11 academic year.

Finance Committee Chair Matthew Beemsterboer said they did not vote on the operations at this meeting because he wanted to give the council time to review the recommendations as it plans to give out $145, 000.

The largest grant is of $33,000 for the Campus Women’s center, according to Beemsterboer.

Junger said he anticipated the operations funds to be approved at the next meeting without much debate.

Student Council also passed a bylaw that would give the chair of ASM flexibility running the meetings and, for the sake of efficiency, allow them to use their discretion in skipping over parts of the meeting they would usually be required to announce.

Junger said the bylaw would allow the chair to not announce chair reports for committees that no longer exist, such as the Campus Relations Committee.