On Wednesday night, the Student Government elections commission announced the results of the referendum to bring back the position of student body treasurer and create a student senate delegation for CarolinaLIFE. The referendum passed with 387 "yes" votes and 58 "no" votes.
The referendum had previously been postponed from Nov. 29-30 because Student Government did not feel the student body was adequately aware that it was happening.
“I'm really happy. I think that this was a really important step towards getting our finance department back in order to help students request funding easier,” student senator Hannah Augsbach Lamma, who wrote the treasurer’s referendum legislation, said.
The student body treasurer will once again oversee the internal finances of Student Government and help allocate activity funds to student organizations after the elected position was eliminated during the 2021 elections. Student Government will continue with its current structure until the election this spring, when a student body treasurer will be elected along with a student body president, vice president and speaker of the student senate.
In addition to re-establishing the treasurer position, the referendum added a delegation for CarolinaLIFE, a non-degree program that assists students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, to the student senate.
The senate also passed a bill to set a cap for campaign spending for Student Government candidates. The highest any campaign can spend is now $3,000, and the caps are lower for students running as individuals and on tickets with fewer candidates. Candidates must also file budgets of how they spent their money (for fair market priced items) to the elections commission.
“It was one of those things that just kept coming back. We obviously delayed it once, and so we just took that time to get that amendment through,” student senator Aden Lloyd said.
According to Lloyd, most SEC schools have a maximum spending amount of around $2,000-$2,500, near the $2,000 maximum the bill originally proposed, which he would like to see in the future.
An amendment raised the maximum a ticket may be allowed from $2,000 to $3,000 as well as clearly defined the spending limit for each type of ticket and specified that filing fees will not count towards the cap.
An individual executive candidate will be allowed $1,500 while a single student senate candidate can spend up to $250. A ticket featuring an executive candidate will also start at $1,500 while a ticket with only senate candidates will start at $250. Each additional executive candidate after the first on a ticket will add $500 to the limit while additional senate candidates add $100 each.
The senate passed another bill to recommend that Narcan training be included in the AlcoholEdu course that first-year students at the university are required to take. Narcan is a medication used to treat narcotic overdose.
“Let's make going out, or just in general, recreational substances safer for students because we know they're going to partake in them, we can’t stop them,” sponsor of the bill Sreshta Ravi said.
Wednesday was also Speaker of the student senate Noah Glasgow’s last day in office. Glasgow resigned to pursue an internship with the U.S. Department of State. Speaker pro tempore Natalie Trimble was sworn in to finish out the term as speaker. Senator Ian Herd was elected to be speaker pro tempore for the remainder of the term.
“I told myself I would not envy the person who followed him as speaker — there's no way that the next person would have anywhere near the qualifications to lead in the way that he has. Ironically, that person is now me,” Trimble said. “Speaker Glasgow, you've left me with some pretty great shoes to fill, and your departure from senate will not only be felt by those just in Student Government, but the entire student body.”