Undergraduate Student Government board members Maggie Bau and Spencer Baker met to discuss the special election timeline and club funding updates on Oct. 5.

Special Elections

Maggie Bau, the vice president of academic affairs, discussed the special elections timeline for the remaining positions on the USG general council.

The remaining positions are Senior Policy Senator, Senior Engagement Senator, Transfer Senator, Greater-Minnesota Senator and Out-of-State Senator.

Following the timeline on TommieLink, the intent to run packets were due at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 9. Candidates were allowed to campaign after 6:30 p.m.

USG will open school wide voting at 8 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 16. Voting will be open until  8 p.m. on Tuesday Oct. 17. Special Election voting will be on TommieLink.

On Thursday, Oct. 19, the newly elected members will be sworn in at the general USG meeting via Zoom.

Finance Committee Update

The fall semester budget for USG this year is $100,000. According to USG President Kate Kaspner, the budget is a lot smaller than in previous years.

Even though 60% of the USG budget is going toward club funding, clubs are still requesting for more financial support, according to USG Vice President for Finance Spencer Baker.

“We have used the procedures that USG motivated to allocate funds to and — even though we have limited funds this year — we still are not giving enough to clubs,” said Baker. “So what we decided to do was double the cap that we’re giving to the club(s).”

The cap was initially 20% to 30% of what clubs requested at the beginning of the semester, but now the cap is close to 50% for clubs that need more funds for events, activities and meetings. Though the Finance Committee has collectively made this decision, it will not be a recurring thing in the future, according to Baker.

The next general USG meeting will be at 12 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 12 at Scooter’s.

Gwynnevere Vang can be reached at vang5129@stthomas.edu.