The Texas Tech Student Senate passed a bill Thursday to place a cap on the amount of money student organizations can receive in funding from the senate, and the bill will go into effect for the 2008-09 budget allocation process.
Previously the senate did not have an established cap on organization funding. According to Senate Bill 44.02, undergraduate organizations will have a cap of 5 percent of the total undergraduate budget, or $15,000 and graduate organizations will have a cap of 15 percent of the total graduate budget, or $7,000. The organization is capped at whichever stipulation occurs first.
Kyle Crowl, senator at-large and co-author of the bill, said the closest undergraduate organization to reaching the cap is $4,000 away from it, and thus it will not immediately affect any undergraduate organizations.
Because certain organizations are growing so rapidly, he said, it would not be good for new organizations to allow budgets over the cap that was established.
"Organizations that are already making $11,000, and will get up to $15,000, have been around for 40 to 50 years," Crowl said. "We want to make sure that new organizations have the same chance, so that in 50 years they can be just as good as these organizations are now."
He said the main benefit of the bill is that it "equalizes the playing field" for newer organizations.
The budget and finance committee will revisit the bill every year, and the student senate will revisit it every three years to make sure the numbers accurately reflect the budget of that year.
A resolution regarding bicycle lanes on Texas Tech Parkway also was passed Thursday. Because there are no bicycle lanes on the road, the resolution stated that bicycle lanes should run from 19th Street to Fourth Street on Tech Parkway.
Dylan McLaughlin, campus infrastructure chairman and co-author of the resolution, said because it is a resolution, it is the opinion of the senate and a bill hopefully will follow.
He said he spoke with students and professors at the Health Sciences Center who have expressed concern about riding bicycles on Texas Tech Parkway for safety and time-management reasons.
"I think there's a want for it and even a need for it, so that's one of the reasons we wrote it now versus when it's feasible," McLaughlin said, "so maybe they'll start looking at it."
Although he does not have an estimate on cost or time to complete the project, McLaughlin said he thinks students and staff will be supportive of the legislation.
To be cost-efficient, he said, bicycle lanes would be built on curbs. Instead of widening streets to add a bicycle lane similar to those on campus, McLaughlin said this plan would only require asphalt to be laid on the curb.
Other resolutions passed include two resolutions making the senator impeachment voting process more concise and anonymous; a resolution to extend the length of employment contracts for graduate students from nine months to 12 months; a resolution that requires teaching assistants to attend a mandatory training session; and a resolution regarding senators who missed the student senate retreat.
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