FINANCE COMMITTEE
Holzman– Good evening, everybody. Changes to the finance handbook have been discussed. Going to start working from top down.
Weinreich– Are we working with the revised finance bill that you sent out?
Holzman- We are working off the bill- over changes itemized in the bill. Does anybody object to us starting without having the agenda in hand?
Coates- Start us from the first
Holzman– First change is “requirement to keep a ledger.” This is to foster groups doing their financials properly. It also gives us an opportunity to check in how well a group is working by asking them to show us their ledger. Maybe this is unnecessary or can be a suggestion rather than a requirement. If it is a requirement, have to have some training along with it.
Coates– What is the difference between ledger and BBA?
Holzman– BBA is a bank statement at the end of the month about how much they’ve budgeted, expended, and how much they have remaining now. All it tells you is how much you have spent in the last month and year versus a ledger shows that they spent exactly what they have spent their money on, such as flyers, DJ, advertising, etc.
Coates– I thought our purchase order system already covered that. Don’t we already have track of that without making groups cover it themselves?
Holzman– Part of it was better financial conscious for treasurers themselves. If you think our purchasing system is enough, so be it. I am not really fighting that hard it. I don’t disagree that this may be too much paperwork. Striking of the ledger? Committee?
Stewart- I think it would make groups realize how they spent their money more consciously, but I don’t think they would care that much. I think including it as a suggestion would not be a bad idea.
Holzman– I am going to remove it from the bill. Not a substantive change in policy, just advice. Next thing- Finance System Training. The finance handbook does not say much right now about what requirements there are to open budget except signing signature card.
Coates– The handbook is typically amended over the summer, so the finance chair can change it if they want to. If groups open this up, they are going to ask what the finance training system is. I read through this and I asked, “What is the finance system training?” We need to be as clear as possible and make sure groups know exactly what we are talking about.
Holzman– Do we just want to make it the finance 101 quiz and make it open-ended as far as training is done and whether it actually happens?
Weinreich– Why don’t we include a measure that shows groups are competent? I like the idea of a quiz, but I personally don’t have a problem locking the finance chair down a quiz or a tangible chair?
Roy– We are not locking the chair into anything if they can amend this.
Stewart– I don’t see the point in putting it there because every group that signs signature cards already did the quiz. By adding the quiz into the handbook, it won’t be doing anything if the next person is going to take it out.
Weinreich– It is good to have writing methods in keeping groups accountable, so the next finance chair will have the opportunity to make any changes he or she sees fit.
Roy– I just wanted to make a suggestion on the first page to change the finance chairs, because it has the old finance chair.
Holzman– It is going to define more clearly what the finance system training is. Article 1, Section C. The section is going to be re-titled Finance Training System.
Coates– Make sure to include and made clear that we will make accommodations for individuals with disability, when we are talking about the finance quiz.
Holzman– I am thinking of something about requiring the finance chair to ensure that signatories are reasonably proficient. If that means that they want to make the pass/fail 80%, they can make it that or they can make it whatever passage they would like and we can talk about it when they come in to sign their signature cards. Article 2, Event Planning is removed because it is duplicated.
Coates– My question is if we take this part out for event planning, does that mean that groups are no longer required by us to go to SPO? We lose our ability to enforce constitutionally if we take it out of the finance handbook.
Holzman– We won’t strike entire section then, and we will maintain requirement to go to SPO, register events.
Coates– You can shorten the section about how event registration must be done through SPO.
Weinreich– You can drop part “B” as well.
Coates– Before we move on, did you make any changes to the distribution of stipends part or same as the existing handbook?
Holzman– I did not make change to that. Next change- Article III, Section A Part 2- Budget Process. Because “R” and “A”’s get an FBP, I don’t see a need for a requirement. They show up to the budget meeting. All they should be able to do is sign off on happy not happy form and that should be it. Their budget cannot be increased or decreased anyway. They can come and speak in protest of FBP but nothing will happen to their budget on the floor. It has been our practice that the “A’s” don’t even come.
Coates– I am confused. You have made more changes before this and have not mentioned them.
Holzman– They are minor changes. I did not think I needed to bring attention to them. Are you concerned that if I change the wording, I will be changing the meaning as well as this change?
Zaman– Any changes that are being made to the handbook – minor or very major, we should be seeing what the changes are.
Holzman– If you want to see both substantive and non-substantive changes, this meeting has to be adjourned. It makes it more difficult to write the handbook if I don’t have the approval on the substantive changes.
Zaman– This change is not necessarily considered unsubstantive because we are split on whether this is a change or whether it is interpreted as differently.
Roy– I thought we were getting a completely new bill tonight.
Holzman– Ok. I will write the finance handbook, email it, put it all out and you can read the substantive changes that have already been itemized here. You can find the policy changes that are already here. Just let me know if that is how it needs to be done.
Coates– You are changing something that is enacted by the Senate bylaws. We need to see the changes. If we are going to make changes to any part of it, we need to see what the changes are and go into detail about them.
Holzman– I failed to enumerate the non-substantive changes, such as making an explanation briefer. I am only bringing the policy changes to the table of Exec. tonight. I give my time back to the chair of the Executive committee. In other news,
WRIU wants $15,000 for automating, archival stream equipment. I would like some idea about how Exec. feels about that. We are thinking about giving them half of what that would all cost. What they are looking to accomplish is better reliability for their online streaming, improved reliability on their regular broadcasting, better ability to do live casting of events. For example, live-casted SSDP Hempfest back in the spring, which took about ten people to do that. With the equipment they would purchase, it would only take one person. I think that is a cool opportunity for the Senate to be getting its programming out there for those in the University community but not aware of programming. The other thing is their need for archival equipment, which is based on their need for any disciplinary action that may be taken against them, and then they need to be able to look back at the broadcast and replay the broadcast. Additionally, if they did have a station outage or have an issue where a DJ can’t DJ, it makes it easier for them to replay an old show.
Roy– I just want to say that I am a little leery of giving them money. Their re-recognition paperwork said they have little undergraduates. I don’t think we should be giving $15,000 to a group who has ten undergrads and 100+ graduates. I would be cautious with their funding.
Holzman– We are sitting on that right now, so we have time to look into that.
Roy– I am going to email their president and I want the exact numbers. Their numbers are not good enough if they are asking for that much money.
Holzman– You may want to ask about the University relationship of the people who are actually broadcasting, not just people who are interested in working with the radio station or people who help out here and there. Make sure they take down the list of radio hosts and find out what their relationship is. They have two positions that are full-time and paid.
Ferreira– I know that when I worked in the Union over the summer, I did not see any undergraduates come in for their key card. They were all graduates or faculty.
Roy– I talked to Maureen about it and she had said she would be looking over it.
Coates– Just for the record, Maureen is their undergraduate advisor. Make sure they understand if they are getting any pushback from the University, it is not the University’s place. Any issues are between them and us. I don’t think it is a bad investment in terms of helping out with live casting with the University. Have they looked at podcasts? Do they need to that type of money to do podcasts? I am a little confused as to why it would be so expensive.
Holzman– One is the disk space to host all of that. It is a huge amount of disk space. The other thing is the automation to be pulling that from the feed as it is feeding and spinning it to disks. I am not clear on the details there. They have the equipment for the archival and the streaming and the networking stuff, but they need new software. Their back up systems are not very reliable right now neither are their archival systems. Very slow networking system. I asked them to prioritize what they would want if we were to give them not the full amount and the automation system is what they would be most interested in having. I would expect the back-up system to be more mission critical.
Coates– I would have assumed the live broadcasting would have been the most critical. Find out why they are afraid of getting in trouble.
Holzman– I don’t know if that is a requirement passed from FCC that they have to archives.
Coates– If there is a concern with the number of graduate students and professors, then University would have a hand. If it is undergraduates, there should not be a problem.
Holzman– Ghost Hunting wants a ton of money- $1500-$3,000 for night vision units. While I think it is a neat organization, I do not think that is cost effective. It is just an expensive piece of equipment.
Coates– I heard that the one they asked for is better than the one the fire department has.
Holzman– I don’t think it is cost effective.
Roy– I would consider one for $1500.
Holden– How many do they want?
Holzman– Just one.
Coates– I would just be concerned with the life cycle. For the record, I believe in the free market and there are a lot of ghost hunting shows on television that are successful. Therefore, ghosts are real. It is up to your committee. This is one of those situations that everybody realizes that everything is on the table, how many people they have had, how many people they are serving. This is a piece of equipment that can’t be re-allocated to another group.
Roy– Perfect with their re-recognition process. I will have all the paperwork on that on the floor.
Troiano– Ask what type of capabilities these goggles have?
Holzman– It is a pistol grip device.
Troiano– If it picks up heat, it is irrelevant because ghosts do no generate heat.
Holzman– Actually, that is debatable. Anyway, that is all I have.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden– Scholarship deadline has been moved to Friday at 1pm. We did not have a lot of submissions. Most of the people in this room are eligible; so I recommend if you are eligible, please apply. Due Friday at 1pm to Kim. I talked to Ashley Cordisco today and she is sick but she will be posting all the information to our social network and working on ads for the Cigar. If you have friends, especially for those in Greek houses, please pass scholarship on to them. Somebody from SEC came to talk to me about formal. SAA’s Social Chair does not want to do formal with us, but everybody else on SAA wants to do it with us.
Roy– Why?
Holden– He wants to it be just SAA. I am trying to have SAA executive board override his decision on that, so it should work. I’ll have more information about that Friday. Tentative date- late January, early February. Feedback from most of the Senators is that it worked out well as well. A lot of attendance discrepancies in the past couple of days. I made the original attendance and the people who did not go to new senator orientation were not included. Some people dropped out of Senate, so there have been changes made. The one Kim right now has is the final version. I apologize for all of this, but President Coates brought to light that we don’t have internal elections after swearing in of new senators, but have to wait five weeks and we have not be following that.
Coates– Last year, we were below 40 senators, which is the only time you can have internal elections.
Holden– Berger sent an email about his desire to run for an internal election. I talked to chairwoman Roy about it the other day. I talked to Kim. He needs to have paid the student tax fee in his tuition, so we are confused if he paid that to URI or his study abroad program. Depending on the program, not all study abroad programs go through URI. I had Kim send an email to the man from enrollment services. Kim talked to him today and she will let me know tomorrow if he has paid or not. I will let Senator Berger know if he is eligible.
Coates– My concern is that even if he paid it, did he pay it to us and did we realize that revenue as part of what we collect in student activities tax?
Holden – He is still a URI student.
Coates– If you are non-matriculating, you don’t have to pay the student activities tax.
Holden– That is why if he paid the tax to the Kingston campus. I am thinking he did it through URI. I am hoping I will know by tomorrow.
Coates– Just make sure to find out that if he paid it to URI, make sure we know if URI kept that money or we sent it to another venue through study abroad?
Roy– Berger is coming back before the election is held. It is different.
Holzman– Bear in mind that whether or not he paid that money, it may be information that only he can get. We may not have access to it.
Holden– Kim told me that Jack Humphry may be able to give a yes or no answer about this without providing specific information regarding financials. By the time he gets back and new senators are sworn in, we only have two meetings left. He wouldn’t have any absences. He would have to make every single after that. He has told me before that even if he were not on Senate, he still would like to attend the meeting.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Thank you for everybody who helped out at homecoming. We went through all 100 apples. We had people coming back for more. The pre-wrapping idea was a great idea because that is what got people to come to the booth. The LGBTQ Director search/interview is going on still. The final candidate interview is going on this week. Thursday and Friday. I have the resume for the final candidate, if you guys just want to look at it. All the candidates are great. I was told to forward it to all students interested. If you guys can make the information session, it is really important. The spirit of giving meeting is this Wedneday at 3pm. The big kick off will be 11/16-11/17 during philanthropy week. The woman’s ice hockey team is asking for money from the diversity fund committee. They are asking for money for not just our hockey team, but the other teams are coming together for a big competition.
Holden– Good job on Saturday.
Coates– Chief Diversity Officer/Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Community met for the first time. Most of it is confidential, so I can’t share unfortunately. They are polishing the job description. They are marketing it as a full vice-president position, even though Board of Governors has not approved that. The pay matches that position. I believe it is in the $175,000 a year with benefits. The reason they are doing that is to make the candidates understand that they will be part of the president’s executive team. The committee is all together too big, about 15 people, which is ridiculous. Out of the 15, there are two students. I had to duck out early before I had a chance to speak. I wanted to discuss the lack of student participation the committee, even though I requested Brittany Ferreira and myself on the committee. Brittany has never received an email. I wanted to bring it up today at the meeting. I know they will not put more students on the committee, because the committee is too big. We are talking about a committee with 15-16 people total. There is one graduate student. There biggest concern is confidentiality, which is why they don’t accept more students, but I still plan on saying something. I don’t think it is acceptable to have two student inputs into this committee when discussing candidates. If they don’t agree to have more students, I can protest and not participate, which can deny them a certain amount of legitimacy. The only other student on the committee is a student staff member from the Alumni Center. This is why we have conflict of interest. I have brought it up previously that there should be more students involved.
Holzman – One of your tactics should really be exploiting their whole thing about shared governance. It is not really shared governance when there is only one student who can freely speak on the committee. If it were really shared governance, it would be evenly distributed.
Zaman– I think it is definitely worth bringing up. You have to vocalize your point of view.
Ferreira– When they have students who are eligible to look in on the candidates, will it be similar to the search committee for the LGBTQ Director?
Coates– It will be similar to the President search committee for President Dooley. It made me uncomfortable, especially when they were talking about confidentiality. They kept making a point of looking at me, which I did not see as a problem. I just don’t think it is acceptable.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman– The style guide is all set. President Coates, I would like you to look at it. I think what the style guide is an outline about how to do documents. It is going to be an ongoing project. We will need style guides for different templates, so this is just the basic. I will have more information for RFI’s during the meeting. The search box for the minutes is already up and running. Check it out if you haven’t. Let me know what you think. On the Senate website. I was just thinking about doing a report or historical document on your veto. I think it is like an important event that happened.
Coates– The style guide- the other ones that you mentioned will probably be the marketing person. What I really wanted is for internal documents. I wanted everyone collectively to write something down and save it. When I did the director of marketing, there is a reason I put that into a memo. When I made bylaws changes, I made sure to put that in the writing as well. I wanted future presidents to see what I have done as well. These are not things that are voted on, so they are official internal documents, but not for public consumption. Even if it is something similar to a journal entry, use a style guide. If people know what a senate document looks like, that will go a long way, especially when we are communicating with the administration.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr– Tomorrow is the safety and lighting walk at 6:30pm. Meeting outside the Senate office. If you want to come and walk around campus for a few hours, come join us. I am going to be emailing the emergency drill committee and asking how that went. Jodi Hawkins has not gotten back to me on the survey, so I emailed her again. Last, Sue Sharkey is the Hertz rep as I mentioned previously. She is meeting with Kate Butler this week to make a type of manual or transition binder. Hertz had her as an on-call campus representative this summer. She is doing an awesome job with that. The Hertz membership for October increased. We are up to 200 members, so it is improving.
Coates– Fire upgrades are going on in Keaney. Be on the lookout for that. Have you heard anything back about the meeting from Bruce?
Juhr– Forogt to contact him, but I will when I get home.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Troiano– Commuter Appreciation Week is postponed until next week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of next week. Same activities as promised, but next week. Today, we rescheduled in committee and worked on logistics. If anybody has any questions about the bill that was put on the floor last week, let me know.
Holden– Can I read academic?
Coates– Hold on. Make sure you coordinate with Cordisco to advertise.
Troiano– Yes, I got in contact with her today.
Segal– She called me to give you her report. She said she spoke to Brittany about everything.
Coates– Can you make sure Pat from your committee gets pointed to her as well?
Troiano– Yes.
Coates– You and I need to have a meeting to co-sign a letter to the Chairman of the Board of Governors this week. They reduced the funding in the Albright Scholarship. Applies to all graduates and not undergraduates. Keep a look out on any changes to Financial Aid.
TREASURER
Segal– Newsletter going out tomorrow from Ashley’s report. Stipends will be in the office tomorrow after 2pm. We sent out an ad to the Cigar for Elections- for nominations and elections. Tell anybody you know that may be interested.
Coates– I put something up on the facebook and I will do it again tomorrow, but if you think of any other forms of advertising, talk to Cordisco.
Ferreira– If you have flyers and can make a copy, I can hand it out to RA.
Holden– It does help if you stand up in a lecture and talk about elections. That is how we got Andrea to get on Senate. If you have any large lectures, bring it up or have the professor bring it up.
Segal– There are five open off-campus seats, so please be sure to tell them.
Coates– Try and make a posting in the Plains Road Lot. Maybe you could get those lawn signs at Campus Copy and you could put one of those in the grass on the walkway from Plains Road Lot to the bus stop. It takes a couple days to be made. I don’t know if you can do it in such a way that it can be reusable.
SECRETARY
Jones– Working on finding electronic voting clickers for the general meeting for voting purposes. I think I will bring to the executive committee for approval and tips on technology and clickers before I send out quotes and order anything. Any suggestions you have are greatly appreciated. Let me know of any kudos ideas this week.
SOARC COMMITTEE
Roy– I have not had that much in the past week, so I have been working on my transition binder. My binder is going to be a flash drive. I am going to email WRIU about their statistics about being graduates and undergraduates. Working on President’s meeting for November. Orientation leader, Risk Management, University-wide calendar, Finance will be discussed. December president’s meeting will be in the Alumni Center on the day I chose. I worked with Cordisco the other day for the senate newsletter about SOARC going green. It says that the other committees are thinking about going green too.
Holzman– Budget applications for next year will be on Sakai. I would love to go all digital, but there are some things that are tough.
Coates– I know Sakai is a wonderful tool, but explore as much as possible about SMART forms or something that is checked by committee. I want groups to be able to submit their contingency grant requests ahead of time. Just something to keep in mind.
Roy– I have already been meeting with three problem organizations. The organizations that are coming for re-recognition. Cigar will be meeting with me about re-writing their constitution. I will be speaking to paid positions about mistakes in the paper. I will be writing contracts with monetary penalties for mistakes in the cigar.
Holden– Geology Club?
Roy– They dropped their problem with the categorization. They said they would come back when they have a bigger membership.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Holden– College Liaison packets he is working on. The Sakai tab- he is still working on. He is working with provost for UC. Gen Ed. Forum and broken card reader has been fixed.
Jones– Good job with getting card readers fixed, Christopher! J
PRESIDENT
Coates– We need a student on University college general education committee. We need someone immediately. I have not heard anything from academic, so we need to get someone.
Segal– Talk to someone who is in University College.
Coates– We need to get someone. They are talking about making major changes to general education committee. We have to make this happen.
Holzman– I certainly suggest someone younger and older. Looking back, I have a lot of opinions about what I think everyone should know and what everybody should need to know. This came in the provost advisory committee last week. Caisse was there. Provost wants to pull together this student summit, so Chris will be announcing details of that as a whole. We will be turning November provost meeting into the summit. Talking about 30-50 students involved, talking about what people should be expected to know and reviewing the committee what should know. The provost is very eager to get student input and Chris was very strong about it too.
Coates– I am working on DOM position. I wish everyone could have been there because the alumni that we have that nobody hears about are incredible. We have a lot of alumni who have done some incredible things. That was a really great thing for me to do. There may be some profiles on the URI webpage. Casey, Segal, and I will meet to be able to start getting quotes from companies about voting. We need to get that done. Please get senators involved. They want to help, so give them things to do.
Holden– Reach out to them too.
Segal– Speaking of alum, Gabe and I were talking about this couple that were on Senate together.
Adjourned 8:04pm