Budget and Allocations Committee Meeting Minutes
October 18th, 2013
Senate Chambers 1:00 PM
Chairman: Senate President Chris Brady
I.
II.
III.
Call To Order
Meeting is called to order at 1:05pm.
Roll Call
Quorum is established at 5 voting members.
IV.
Approval of the Minutes
A) 10/04/13
Motion from Sen. Moore to approve the minutes. Second. No objections. Moved.
V.
Approval of Agenda
A) 10/18/13
Motion from Sen. Caudio to approve the agenda. Second. No objections. Moved.
VI.
Chairman Report and Remarks
Sen. President Brady – Welcome to B&A. At the next senate meeting we will be electing student elections,
and a budget and allocations chairman or chairwoman at the next senate meeting. If you’re interested in that
position I suggest you come and talk to me at some point next week. Make sure you have something ready for
next senate meeting. Currently we have approximately $13,116 in travel requests. If all 3 travel requests
coming up today are passed then we would have $7,663.
VII.
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer Turner – Thank you very much Senate President acting as B&A Chairman Brady. I’m going to
report to you the 2 transfers that have been approved since the last time I had this conversation; I think the last
time I did this we had approved all transfers from recreation. There were 2 transfers that I’ve approved since
that time; I approved a transfer of $500 from Club Alliances Club Fest Rental Line into their food line, the
reason being they found no value in having $500 in rental and told me that they could use that money
effectively in their food line and I think with that money they purchased cotton candy, which went towards
and contributed to the success of Club Fest. That was approved on September 20th. The next one was also for
Club Alliance Club Fest and that came from the $21.97 that they needed to cover the excess charge of some
bagels they bought for the people volunteering for their Club Fest that was pretty successful. The total
purchase I believe was about $70 and they went over by, and needed an additional, $22. I approved that so
volunteers could get bagels. Besides that, I’ve been working on a couple of different things with the
administration and hopefully within the near-future I’ll be able to report on that to you all of the great success
of a couple projects we’ve been working on. As of now I don’t want to report on anything that’s not final.
Sen. Caudio – Are you allowed to tell us what those projects are?
Treasurer Turner – Yes. President Fassi has asked that I head up the Pita Pit project, so I have been heavily
involved in working on that and the various separate campus entities. I got a conference call scheduled on
Monday afternoon about that. We’re getting some pretty good progress. Also, I’m working on a larger
proposal across Student Affairs as far as funding, and we’re seeing how that goes; now, it’s currently being
evaluated.
VIII. Business Manager’s Report
Business Manager, Angela Rivera – If you are a student for a student conference travel today and you are
approved, walk back here and you guys can talk to Jessica; she’ll either talk to you guys outside or arrange a
meeting next week or meet with you now.
Treasurer Turner – I apologize, I forgot to mention a vital portion of my report. At the last meeting, I don’t
think I was there I believe I was out of town on the SGA conference, Fransua had distributed a Title VIII quiz
and he has shared with me some of the results of that. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not sure if, due to
what’s going on now, if there’s going to be a presentation on some of the common missed questions.
However, if while taking that quiz there are some parts to Title VIII that you need to get, or would like to get,
more enlightenment on or clarification as to what they are, what they mean, what they stipulate, what the rules
are, I am available to you all anytime you like to go over those procedures and rules, and I can give you my
card to set up a time after this meeting. I apologize for that.
IX.
Guest Speakers
X.
Account Totals
2013-2014 Fiscal Year
Special Requests
Travel Requests
Salary Reserves
Sweep-up Funds
Now
$0.00
$13,116.79
$43,686.05
$177,106.17
After
$0.00
$7663.81
$43,686.05
$177,106.17
XI.
Old Business
XII.
New Business
A) Transfers
B) Salary Reserve Requests
C) Travel Requests
a. Transportation & Logistics Society – Sen. Brady
Motion from Sen. Caudio to table the Transportation & Logistics Society Travel Request to next
meeting. Second. No objections. Moved.
b. Kristin Karle – Sen. Anderson
Sen. Anderson – I’m here to introduce Kristin; she’s looking to get a travel request approved by
you all to go to New Zealand.
Kristin Karle – I am Kristin Karle; I am a new graduate student here at UNF and I work with Dr.
Gibson in the marine mammal lab. With that in mind I am going, this December, to the 20th
Annual Conference of Marine Mammals in New Zealand and this is pretty phenomenal that I was
pretty acceptance into a national conference on my work on the bottlenose dolphins in the St.
Johns. My work is about habitat youth and conservation; what’s important to me is that with this
conference is on conservation issues. My long term goals: I want to be a researcher, and I want to
research the correlation between intelligence and marine mammals, specifically whales and
dolphins. I am relaly hoping that through this conference I’ll learn a lot more, including
networking and just getting to see what research is going on right now. So that’s why it benefits
me. And how it benefits UNF: UNF is now going to be represented at an international conference,
which is a pretty huge deal. Everything I do, my name and my poster are going to say UNF, so I
will be asset for this. I will also be spreading research here. I will hopefully be learning new
research methods to help with my thesis work. Right now, I’m just finding out what I want to do,
and I’m really looking forward to going to this conference and workshops and bringing back all
these new research methods.
Sen. Caudio – Is this your first time going to a conference like this?
Kristin Karle – Yes. I went to a conference here. This is the first time I’ve ever been accepted to
present. I’m very excited to be an international presenter.
Sen. Moore – So you did register before August 1st?
Kristin Karle – Yes I did register before August 1st. I’m only requesting $500 and that will go
strictly to airfare which is about between $2300, which is close to in-state tuition so I’m trying to
gather funding from everywhere. So all the other things before I had done myself.
Motion from Sen. Caudio to approve Kristin Karle for $500. Second. No objections.
Sen. Caudio – I feel that Ms. Karle has a great opportunity to represent our university and further
her studies and research, so I feel like this is great for UNF.
Roll call vote. Passes 5-0-0.
c. Model United Nations – Sen. Anderson
Sen. Anderson – I’m here to introduce the Model UN and they’re going on a trip from November
21st to November 24th to Atlanta. The Model UN if you don’t know has a lot of trophies over in
the Club Alliance office, if you want to see them. They’ve done very well. They’ve taken over 70
participants in the last 5 years and they’re going to try to take 16 this year. I would ask for an
amendment to the proposal; you’ll that they have $850 for registration, and I’d like that to be the
remaining of what it actually is. Obviously, when they go to these things they’re going to come
back with a lot of leadership skills and real world experience in how to debate and bring that back
to UNF in a very local, well-performing model UN.
Kevin O’Hallern – My name is Kevin O’Hallern and I am the communications director for all of
the United Nations here at UNF. Basically, we’re a competitive club here on campus that goes to
conferences, both here in-state, regionally, and even internationally. We go up against universities
from all over the country; we represent nations at a simulation of the United Nations. Last year, I
represented, for example, Sierra Leone. Basically we have won lots of awards. We really focus on
developing leadership and bringing that awareness to the students and representing diplomacy.
You stand up and present in what can be hundreds of people at these large conferences and you
really come up with solutions. We also develop civic awareness so our members learn a lot about
the local community, dealing with issues ranging from genocide down to economic crisis and all
these things and you really come together with other universities to solve this. Also, we really
work well as an educational club here on campus. We write resolutions, we write research papers,
and more importantly we gain perspective from many different angles. Representing a developing
nation is a lot different than representing the United States. You really see issues from a
standpoint that they would be coming from. We actually give back to the community pretty
deeply. We have members who are part of different clubs also. We have members that are
involved in Terry Hubbard House and this individual hopes to be on the committee for battered
women and we have members who are involved in Catholic Charities. We even give back to the
local community by working with local high schools and their Model UN. This is a really good
club for building resumes; it gives you tons of experience, as I’ve discussed. As some examples
of where our members have gone: we have people who have done the world food program in
Thailand, been accepted to the Peace Corps, one of whom is now an intern in DC, interned for
Senator Bill Nelson, study abroad, etc. As I mentioned we have many awards; if you go over to
Club Alliance trophy case, it’s basically Model UN awards, and we’re really proud of that. We go
to these conferences and represent UNF well and bring back important information. At our most
recent conference, just last weekend; a brand new delegate went and represented Argentina on the
Security Council and he won 2 awards on his own. We’re really proud of our delegates.
This conference specifically is an international conference in Atlanta, it’s very competitive, and
every year we go and we meet a lot of other people. This time, everyone who wanted to go to this
conference we are actually able to facilitate them going so it really has worked out pretty well.
The budget request breakdown: the initial cost, you can see here, we have the registration for the
actual conference, the lodging that is kind of the bulk, the travel. What we’re requesting from
Student Government is just to cover the lodging. We amended the original request, and we think
it’s really more fair to just ask for about half and we’ll be taking the rest of it. Fundraising we’re
going to try to strike between $1,000-$1,500. That’s kind of based on last year’s efforts, but we’re
going to try harder this year. Students will be expected to pay whatever is not fundraised.
Students attended the conference are also to give non-refundable down payments and all
participants will be expected to raise money. We do have some ideas for fundraising: we have
Chick-fil-a, California Pizza Kitchen, Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mikes, and we’re really trying to
get that paperwork together so we can fundraise the rest of this. Actually, we’re also posting
something different this year; in front of the World Affairs Council, which is a council of
professionals in the field, and we’re putting together a simulation for them and we’re trying to do
a secure project funding as well.
Sen. Moore – can you explain how this works?
Kevin O’Hallern – Basically, we talk to certain people, especially in this world, and we show
them what we’re made up. We present how well we can perform and we know what we’re doing
and if they see if they’re interested then they accept us. It’s a donation to the club itself. We have
a Go Funding website.
Motion from Sen. Higdon to strike the registration line of $829 to bring the total amount to
$1,627. Second. No objections. No discussion. Roll call vote.
Motion from Sen. Higdon for unanimous consent. Second. No objections. Moved.
Motion from Sen. Higdon to approve the Model United Nations for the amended amount. Second.
No objection.
Sen. Caudio – I like what they do, I see that they reach out to the community, however I’d really
like to talk about this before we make a decision.
No further discussion.
Roll call vote. Passes 4-0-1.
d. Transportation & Logistics Society – Sen. Brady
(Sen. Collin Waychoff officiates the meeting henceforth.)
Motion from Sen. Caudio to put Transportation and Logistics Society Travel Request back on the
agenda. Second. No objections. Moved.
Sen. Brady – You’re about to hear a request right now from the Transportation & Logistics
Society. They are one of the greatest organizations on our campus, in my opinion; they do a lot of
great things for our campus in a positive way. Please give them your full attention.
James Flannagan – Hello my name is James Flannagan, I’m the treasurer for this and we’re here
to ask for $2500 to go to Savannah for a convention from November 17-19 and a lot of Fortune
500 companies go to.
Transportation & Logistics Society – There are going to be 3000 business professionals there.
The whole point of TLS is foster professional growth and industry. This is one of only 2
opportunities we have to go to another part of America and represent UNF. We also, by doing
this, we’ll enhance our educational skills, our professional skills. This will give us the opportunity
to meet professionals as well as other students, and it will give us all kinds of tools for
networking. It’s important for us to be there so we can network with our fellow colleagues and
professionals, and this gives us an opportunity to meet potential co-workers, and to figure out
what it’s like to work in transportation and logistics. There are going to be 3 different schools
there: University of Maryland, University of North Texas, and us. There’s a case competition
team who’s going. We also get to meet and talk with the other students. We get the experience of
the latest technology in the field and attend educational workshops. This makes UNF stand out
nationally because of all the companies that will be there and with all the other students, as well
as there will be recruitment opportunities. After the convention we will come back and have a
presentation on the convention in our general meeting which can be presented to any UNF
student that comes to our meetings; the students that go will also collaborate with professors for
next semester. We did get a scholarship from the UNF Alumni Association, and we also received
a video from them to say thank you.
Along with the UNF Alumni Association and Student Government we also do independent
student funding scholarships, and unfortunately the registration is siting around $1,500 per
student. A few of us have raised about $745 by selling t-shirts at different meetings and events on
campus. We’d like to thank you all for listening to our presentation on hopefully going on this
trip.
Sen. Caudio – How do you choose the people that go on this trip?
Transportation & Logistics Society – They are selected by our advisor, and they’re people who
volunteer a lot and show a lot of interest in the club and in learning more about the industry itself.
There are 3 students going as far as the competition team and they are chosen through the
professors as far as the logistics team goes.
Sen. – Do you know traditionally how much student government funds for this trip?
Transportation & Logistics Society – Last year I believe we got the full $2,500.
Motion to approve the Transportation and Logistics Society for the total amount of $2,500.
Second. No objections.
Sen. Moore – I fully support this. To me this is a program that is traditionally funded, they have a
lot of students that go to it and I feel like they take a real effort in trying to figure out better ways
to be able to fund this trip so we don’t always have to fund the full amount.
Roll call vote. Passes 4-0-0.
Special Requests
Finance Code
General Reserves
Budget Balancing
Announcements
None.
D)
E)
F)
G)
XIII.
XIV.
Final Roll Call
Quorum is reestablished with 4 voting members.
XV.
Adjournment
Meetings is adjourned at 1:38pm.