USG proposes summer coronavirus committee

Senators presented the formation of an intersemester senatorial committee at the Undergraduate Student Government meeting Tuesday. Composed solely of current senators, the committee would be in session during the Summer 2020 term and contend with student issues related to the coronavirus, including advocating on behalf of the student body to administrators and providing necessary resources. 

“If we don’t have [the] Senate operational at all, and we suddenly saw that there was a need for advocacy …  but we didn’t take precaution or responsibility or early measures to compensate for the ability to take any action, we would have our hands tied and we wouldn’t be able to operate at all,” Sen. Ruben Romeo said. 

Initially proposed by Sen. Gabriel Savage, the committee would meet online at least once per month with the goal of providing any necessary services and resources to students during the summer. 

“It’s not necessarily only [being created] to offer operations, but even just to be prepared and familiar with actions we can be taking during the summer in preparation for fall as well,” Romeo said. “This is all very precautionary, in my opinion … I think it just makes sense that we are best prepared.” 

The Senate also heard an amendment to the USG bylaws regarding USG executive staff stipends. The amendment would decrease the stipends for the president, vice president, chief of staff, chief financial officer, chief programming officer, chief communications officer, chief diversity officer and speaker of the Senate in order to allot money for stipends for assistant directors of funding, communications and programming departments. 

“As it stands with being paid, I will always strongly advocate for what I think is fair and just,” Romeo said. “I’m pretty happy with the changes being made by the USG administration and the decision to give them pay.”

The budget allocation committee also presented its proposal for the 2020-21 fiscal year’s budget. Because of the uncertainty regarding how enrollment numbers may be affected by the coronavirus and whether on-campus classes will resume in the fall, the committee chose to allocate to the contingency fund reserve at least 20% of the discretionary fund, which funds programming put on by recognized student organizations. 

“The 20% is just a more conservative estimate on how enrollment numbers might change,” USG President Truman Fritz said. “We don’t know what the situation is, and we just want to make sure that we are being responsible. Because this can be allocated at a later date and approved by [the] Senate again, we felt like this would be the best move forward.” 

In addition, many of the allocations to departments within the programming branch were evaluated by their ability to move events and programs to next spring semester if remote classes continue through the fall. Departments such as the Trojan Pride Committee received an increase in funding because its events could be conducted virtually if necessary next fall, while Concerts Committee had its budget cut due to its inability to move its events online. 

“If we are allowed to have virtual programming events in the fall, that’s one thing that we support,” treasurer Mike Shao said. “I think that’s one thing that the student body would really enjoy, especially if we weren’t able to go back to campus, but that does decrease costs for a lot of events.”

The Senate will vote on these presentations at its meeting next Tuesday.