The Undergraduate Student Government senate unanimously passed senate bill 144-10 among present senators, to reallocate $67,800 of its more than $2.5 million 2024-25 budget. Senator Brandon Tavakoli was not present at the Tuesday night meeting.

The bill shifted all $54,000 of the budget allocated to the USC Volunteer Center to the Office of Student Basic Needs. 

Bryan Fernández, USG’s president and a co-author of SB 144-10, said the Volunteer Center would not be significantly impacted and the change was made to ensure USG is meeting students where they need the most help. The Volunteer Center “communicated their acceptance of the changes” in meetings with Fernández, the president said.

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“Something that [USG vice president Brianna Sánchez] and I really ran on was utilizing the funds of our budget impactfully and in the most efficient way possible,” said Bryan Fernández, USG’s president and a co-author of SB 144-10. “That’s why we want to reallocate a variety of times, and not just during spring allocations.”

Fernández said the reallocation will support the Office of Student Basic Needs’ Trojan Food Pantry, which opened a permanent location Sept. 24. The pantry supplies students in need with fresh food, nonperishable items, toiletries and academic supplies. To access the pantry’s services, a person must be currently enrolled at USC, not on a meal plan and impacted by food insecurity.

“One of the biggest things that students have been telling us is that [the Trojan Food Pantry] is a great resource for students to have. They just aren’t able to access it [efficiently] because of the limited hours,” Fernández said. “This money would truly allow them to expand the time and also the amount of students that they serve.”

Fernández said he will be able to give an update on the changes the pantry will make once the money is given. 

SB 144-10 also removed $8,400 from USG’s Legal Services and $5,400 dollars from its Student Stipends Account. 

Fernández said a joint USG and Graduate Student Government project to promote external, legal resources for USC students decreased the amount of USG funding needed for lawyers, leading to the cut. The student stipend surplus was due to a misallocation, he said.

Sánchez said the currently unallocated $13,800 is being saved as surplus for a Nov. 1 “major reallocation.”

During the meeting, the senate also heard a presentation from USG’s affordability and basic needs committee. The committee has a vacant chair seat after Klarissa Palacios was removed last week based on reports of violations of the USG bylaws and code of ethics, which Fernández wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan.

While an appeal process is currently underway, the committee’s senators Jeremiah Boisrond and Patrick Nguyen are serving as “co-chairs.” Boisrond said he could not comment on the status of finding a new chair due to the USG bylaws regarding judicial appeals.

“Although we did have the removal of our chair, our vision remains the same within the AFFBN committee,” Nguyen said. “We recognize that AFFBN and basic needs look different for everyone … Our goal this year is to diversify what basic needs means for our student body.”

Nguyen said one of his goals is to increase promotion for USC resources and make them more accessible.

“There’s so many resources at USC that are out there that students don’t know about,” Nguyen said. “My job as a senator is making that more accessible for students.”

The senators also said that all seven projects they presented alongside former chair Palacios on Sept. 10 are still being worked on. The committee assigned leads to projects involving a legal aid resource, financial aid callback optimization, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps housing priority, a campus infrastructure reassessment, tenant rights workshops, a Free Application for Federal Student Aid workshop and mandatory accessibility training.

Speaker of the senate Diana Carpio applauded Boisrond and Nguyen for their efforts on the AFFBN committee.

“I just want to commend both of you for stepping into that, co-chairing the AFFBN committee right now,” Carpio said. “You both have been showing great leadership and I think that that’s what USG really needs right now.”

During the meeting, Carpio also reported her laundry stipend project, which received around 300 applications this year, passed a legislative branch vote of confidence and will be brought to the senate Oct. 22.