The Student Senate meeting began at 6:02 p.m. on Monday.

Grace Crickette, vice chancellor for finance and administration, and Kent Gerberich, chief information officer and director of Learning and Technology Services, gave a presentation with the UW System Office of General Counsel about data security following the AudienceView security breach.

Senator Jake Hicks withdrew bill 66-B-18, which would have given a monthly stipend to support the Campus Harvest Food Pantry.

Hicks reintroduced bill 66-B-19 to allocate $10,000 from The Green Fund to support operational costs for the Campus Harvest Food Pantry. 

Hicks said making an allocation from The Green Fund to support the pantry is a “gray area” of A20 policy, and he is waiting to hear back from the administration and UW System legal whether the allocation will be accepted.

“Fingers crossed that admin looks in a good light and takes my interpretation as gospel and that’s what’s going to be enacted,” Hicks said. “We’ll see, but either way, it’s a step in the right direction and it’s a signal of intent at the very worst and at the very best the pantry gets funding that it desperately needs.”

Bill 66-B-19 passed unanimously with a vote of 29-0-2.

Student Office of Sustainability Senate Director Sydney McGuine reintroduced bill 66-B-20 to reuse the vinyl signage from the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) because the vinyl cannot be recycled.

$6,450 from The Green Fund would be allocated to cover the cost of producing 250 small pouches, keychains, passport holders or luggage tags for students out of the 200 square feet of vinyl signage.

“I’m excited to see where it goes in the future, if they’re used more often we can do this with other vinyl signage,” McGuine said. “It’s a good way to advertise for SOS, as well as use student funds to give students something and take the vinyl away from the landfill.”

McGuine said she also liked the idea of calling on the university to stop using vinyl signage and instead use a material that can be recycled.

Bill 66-B-20 passed with a vote of 27-1-2.

Finance Commission Director Ben Johnson reintroduced bill 66-B-21 to amend the senate bylaws to include the Student Organizations Commission (SOC) special allocation fund.

Johnson said amending the senate bylaws would ensure future sessions continue to use the special allocation fund.

Bill 66-B-21 passed unanimously with a vote of 28-0-1.

Equity in Student Matters (ESM) Commission Senate Director Joshua Holness introduced bill 66-B-22 to amend the senate bylaws to clarify the ESM commission bylaws and update the ESM budget process.

Senator and Vice President-elect Sam Consiglio made a motion to suspend the bylaws about the consideration time period of this bill so the senate could vote on the bill before the 67th begins. The motion passed unanimously.

Bill 66-B-22 passed with a vote of 27-1-2.

Information Technology Commission (ITC) Director Joseph Dokken introduced bill 66-B-23 to approve the 2024 ITC budget of $1.3 million.

Dokken said according to UW System Administrative Policy 815, the Student Technology Fee is 2% of the previous year’s tuition costs and ITC is responsible for allocating and setting the budget ranges for the Student Technology Fee.

The technology project budget was reduced from $50,000 to $35,000 to allow for an increase in library student employee wages, Dokken said.

Consiglio made a motion to suspend the bylaws about the consideration time period, and bill 66-B-23 passed unanimously with a vote of 28-0-2.

Vice President and Student Body President-elect Brett Farmer introduced bill 66-B-24 to create an ad-hoc vacancy committee for the 67th session.

“Going through this session, I realized that creating an ad-hoc vacancy committee is one of the first things I wanted to do in the 67th session,” Farmer said. “Given the timeline of two meetings left, I thought that it would be really nice to hopefully get some last-minute involvement from the people who either didn’t have a chance to run in the election or didn’t get elected.”

Consiglio made a motion to suspend the bylaws about the consideration time period, and bill 66-B-24 passed unanimously with a vote of 28-0-2.

Parliamentarian Thomas Miller read the 67th senate election results and the senate certified the results.

Senators, committee members and commission members of the 66th session resigned and the 67th session began.

Solvieg Dei, Lily Eisele, Lauren Garbisch, Matthew Lehner, RJ Murray, Diana Abarca Palma, Allie Russell, Brenna Strojinc and Abby Wennersten were sworn in as on-campus senators.

Mei Bean, Mary Bolog, Ben Calcutt, Hicks, Danny Karofsky, Cora Martin, Sara Multhauf, Benjamin Myszka, Rachel Stein, Sierra Szydel and Emma Velazquez were sworn in as off-campus senators.

Farmer and Consiglio will be sworn into office at the next senate meeting.

Karofsky, Lehner, McGuine and Miller were appointed to the ad-hoc vacancy committee.

The senate adjourned at 9:40 p.m. and will reconvene at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 1 in the Dakota Ballroom.

Kasper can be reached at [email protected].