[255] in UA Senate
Re: 41UAS4.1 "Final Authority"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex Dehnert)
Fri Nov 6 11:48:38 2009
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:48:09 -0500
From: Alex Dehnert <adehnert@MIT.EDU>
To: Alex Dehnert <adehnert@mit.edu>
CC: UA Senate <ua-senate@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <4AEF9110.9020309@mit.edu>
Did anyone have any thoughts about this bill? Or questions about why it
is good? Or... anything else?
Should I be assuming from the silence that nobody has issues, and it'll
sail through Senate on Monday (once it (hopefully) gets off the table)?
I mean, I wouldn't mind that... I'm just a little doubtful.
~~Alex
Alex Dehnert wrote:
> Sorry about how late this is getting out... As I mentioned in my FPRC
> email, I've been distracted by various things (including by the FPRC, at
> least from cleaning up 4.1...).
>
> Fundamentally, I believe that Senate should be able to delegate
> authority in general, not just because of the reallocation bill. The
> reallocation bill is itself a fairly minor thing --- it'd sway a couple
> thousand dollars (out of about a hundred thousand dollars) to student
> groups. If the bill doesn't pass, I won't actually be very sad (among
> other reasons, I'm not actually in many student groups that get money
> from Finboard, so I'm only barely personally affected by this...).
>
> Anyway... I've expanded on some of my reasoning in new whereas clauses,
> at
> http://web.mit.edu/ua/officers/treasurer/Public/FY10/2009-10-moving-money/constitution.pdf.
>
>
> New clauses:
> \whereas{it may be more productive for Senate to delegate its financial
> authority in certain matters}
> \whereas{it is not a productive use of the Senate's time to micromanage
> and debate certain matters}
> \whereas{Senate may have better things to do than carefully examine
> small allocations and reallocations}
> \whereas{such better things may include examining reports such as the
> DPC report and
> the UA ``Response to the Institute-wide Planning Task Force Preliminary
> Report'',
> which may impact long-term Institute policy}
> \whereas{such better things may include examining reports such as the
> Financial Policy Review Committee's report and the Constitution
> Committee's report
> which are likely to impact long-term UA policy}
> \whereas{such better things may also include proactively setting the
> UA's policy,
> including setting broad financial policy or advocacy goals}
>
> That clause (slightly modified):
> ``The Senate shall have final authority over the allocation
> or reallocation of the financial resources of
> this Association and its subsidiary organizations.
> \textbf{Senate shall have the power to delegate, or revoke
> the delegation of, its financial authority, but it may,
> in a timely fashion, overrule any decision of its delegate.
> Senate may emplace such limitations, including notification
> or waiting requirements, on the exercise of such delegated
> power as it sees fit.}
> In addition, it shall require a two- thirds vote of the
> Senate to authorize the release of funds for expenditure
> from the Undergraduate Dues Reserve and
> Contingent (invested reserve).''
>
> ~~Alex
