Next year’s budget was the hot topic of the day for the SGA at Tuesday’s meeting.
However, the issues in question were exactly what to include on the budget request that was to be sent to the Student Activity Allocations Committee.
Sen. Ethan Flynn proposed a new program to initiate in the coming year. He suggested that SGA buy back textbooks from students in order to alleviate some of the cost of college for students. The books would then be reserved in the Sherrod Library for students to check out.
“This is a concern that I’ve had and I’ve seen other students have,” Flynn said, “Whether or not there is money set aside in the budget, I’m going to pursue it anyway.”
The books that are included in the preliminary stages of Flynn’s proposal are mostly core curriculum books, such as sociology, probability and statistics, U.S. history and English. These choices would basically benefit freshmen and sophomores; however, Flynn hopes to expand the program later on.
Not all students agreed with Flynn’s idea to buy books. “Does SGA want to become a book-buying agency for the library when they run out of books?” asked Sen. Chris Ziegler.
Another budget proposal involved the USA Today Readership Program. USA Today did a four-week trial run at ETSU, in which students were able to pick up free copies of both USA Today and the Johnson City Press on a daily basis.
However, for the program to continue, funding must come from somewhere.
For a cost of $20,000, ETSU would receive about 170 newspapers and two ID card holders for the papers. For $15,000, there would only be one ID card holder and about 150 newspapers. The minimum amount, $10,000, provides open bins for the newspapers.
SGA voted to request $10,000 in their budget to fund the USA Today program.
One other additional request was decided upon. SGA is requesting a raise in Vice President Aaron Caton’s pay. Currently, half of the vice president’s tuition is paid throughout the course of the semester. SGA felt that after all Caton’s hard work, the position should receive a higher pay.
All these proposals brought the SGA’s requested budget to almost $50,000. Secretary Priya Ponnapula did not expect the requested amount to be quite that high.
“This is the highest I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Over the last four years, I’ve never seen it that high.
“Now, a heftier portion of that is going toward serving the students.”
The Senate also read several new bills of legislation to be voted on at a later time.
They tabled one bill, passed another and two were withdrawn.
Several resignations were also received and read at the meeting. These included Katie Ikenberry, Chris Beumer and Ashley McCroskey.
These resignations among others leave several Senate seats vacant.
“Now that there are Senate positions that are open, I hope they can be filled by responsible people that can be held accountable for the serious business that we would like to accomplish before the end of the semester,” said Sen. Megan McEntire.

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