Student government leaders with big plans may not have any money to spend.
The passage of the annual Associated Students of the University of Utah budget is being challenged by two students who are angry about the voting process by which the budget was passed.
Adopted in that same vote were executive raises and changes to ASUU’s constitution.
All the decisions-carried out by the ASUU General Assembly without a quorum-are being appealed to the ASUU Supreme Court.
Aaron Titus and Jeff Neu, both past Assembly members, maintain the meeting, in which the legislation was passed, did not have a quorum-the necessary 25 of 48 members present.
They also say proxy voters, who stood in for elected officials, were illegal because they did not fill out an official voting record.
“Last year’s ASUU administration seems to have very little regard for ASUU law,” Titus said. “It’s a pattern that has repeated itself in most Assembly meetings, and several of the administration’s policies.”
In addition, Titus says Randall Lloyd, last year’s Assembly Chair and ASUU vice president, made illegal rulings “to stack the deck in favor of his agenda” on behalf of the three bills.
“What if the vice president had pulled the same illegal moves to pass an unethical bill? If we don’t do anything, we’re opening the door to more brazen violations of ASUU law,” he said.
Titus and Neu are asking the court for a temporary injunction which would stop any spending.
In addition, the pair wants the court to nullify the Assembly’s vote on the three bills, to write formal letters of reprimand and to clarify the constitution on such proceedings.
Since the new Supreme Court justices were officially selected on May 16, the court can consider the requests. If the justices decide to hear the case, a court date will be set.
However, if the justices rule in favor of the appellants, ASUU will no longer have a legitimate budget for the 2003-2004 year until the next ASUU Assembly and Senate meetings this month, where a new budget resolution could be considered.
One of the bills in question, dealing with compensation, raised the salaries of the ASUU president and vice president from $750 per month to $1,000 per month in addition to full tuition waivers.
However, the bill failed at the University Joint Apportionment Board-made up of faculty and students-because the raise was not accounted for in the annual budget, according to Kelly Ann Booth, last year’s attorney general.
Thus, ASUU officials would have to decide if they want to submit a new bill for the raise.
According to ASUU President Adrian Johnson, there were no raises for about seven years, so he believes an increase is acceptable.
However, the administration as a whole has not decided if they will push for the increase.
If there were any irregularities in the meeting, his administration would make sure they were corrected, Johnson said.
While Booth said Titus may be trying to make the Assembly better she doesn’t agree with his appeal.
“If he truly wants to help, he shouldn’t challenge the budget and tie ASUU’s hands in serving students,” Booth said.
Booth said she is “perplexed” about why no one challenged the bills when they were on the floor.
“Other than the idea that the meeting was somewhat loosely run, I don’t think that it’s grounds to disqualify the budget,” she said.