At the senate meeting on Oct. 8, some special requests posed a few future problems for the ASUO senate.

Representative Monquize Dusseau from ASUO Executives requested funding from the budget surplus for a Finance Retreat that is mandatory for ASUO Executive Branch. The Senate began to discuss whether or not ASUO budget surplus should include food for a trip that is off campus when they could provide food if the trip was on campus.

The idea was later tossed around when considering Finance Resolutions and which part of retreats the budget surplus should fund.

Following under Finance Resolutions, Senate passed a resolution that requires that groups using the budget surplus to go on retreats provide a detailed schedule of activities that will happen on the retreats. Senator Miles Sisk offered his opinion on why this would be necessary.

“People are making conduct code violations on retreats the ASUO funds and the point of this resolution is to stop that from happening in the future,” said Sisk.

The resolution originally included the idea of having each group bring a non-student leader to oversee the retreat and assure the activities were carried out and students acted responsibly. “We need to do this for everyone and not just for people asking for money from the budget surplus,” Senator Francisco Morales-O’Connor said. “This seems like a good idea, but we should get everyone on the same page.”

That particular section was removed from the resolution by senate, but the resolution can be amended in the future

Following resolutions, the senate voted on new positions for senators. Sisk was elected Vice President, Senator Samantha Cohen was unanimously voted to Senate Ombudsperson, Senator Charles Pontrelli was elected Senate Treasurer and Senator Abel Cerros was elected Academic Chair.

The special requests from the International Students Association and the ASUO Executive Financial retreat both walked away with the full amount requested.