The featured topic of discussion at the Student Senate meeting on Oct. 24 was the funding procedure bill introduced by Isaac Staszkow, student senator of Housing and Residence Life, during the student senate meeting on Oct. 17.

The bill seeks to streamline the process in which parties seeking aid with funding from the senate goes about doing so by creating a series of prerequisites that must be fulfilled before making a funding request with the student senate.

“We’re creating a roadmap for people who are requesting funding,” Staszkow said.

Staszkow said the intent of the procedures is to help groups who are seeking funding get as much of that funding as possible.

The bill stipulates that those who are seeking funding from the student senate must make an effort to reach out to other on-campus resources for funding before submitting a funding request to the student senate. According to the bill, these attempts to raise funding do not necessarily need to be successful.

The bill clarifies that those seeking funding from the student senate must first make an effort to ask appropriate colleges and/or departments on campus for help. The other requirement parties seeking funding must fulfill is to attempt to obtain funding from other Weber State University Student Association branches like clubs and organizations, diversity and unity when appropriate.

Parties who bring a funding request to the student senate without first completing these steps will be tabled indefinitely, or at least until the outlined steps are completed.

Several amendments were made during the meeting concerning language in the bill. More specifically, to replace all instances of the word “applicable” with the term “appropriate,” to clarify that the prerequisites outlined in the bill only apply to parties seeking funding from the student senate when seeking funding from those outside sources.

Concerns were also briefly raised about a perceived need for transparency regarding how other WSUSA branches process the funding requests they receive. As such, intentions to make an attempt to connect with the other branches to have them share with the student senate how they process funding requests were made clear.

Ultimately, questions concerning how other WSUSA branches handle funding requests made to them were deemed outside the purview of the bill by Staszkow. A veteran student senator, Jessica Dye, agreed and successfully motioned the long-discussed bill into voting. The vote resulted in the passing of the new funding request bill.

Aside from the successful voting in of the new funding procedure bill, other voting business scheduled for the day included two funding requests that were both unanimously passed.

Dye presented a funding request for $650 to help cover the costs of a gift package that will be given to WSU students who have served in the military in commemoration of Veterans Day. The other funding request put into effect was $1,600 for snacks at the group town hall meetings for the rest of the academic year.

In the issues forum portion of the meeting, no issues were raised by the members of the public in attendance.