On Sept. 15, MCSG passed Redistribution Bill 41, which provides that all student organization funding allocations made during the Spring 2020 semester are nullified and will be reallocated to the Operating Fund. 

After opening with a land acknowledgement statement and introducing the new board members, MCSG President Fatiya Kedir ‘21 began the meeting with an open floor. Financial Affairs Committee (FAC) chair Hannah Gilbert ‘21 was then given the floor for MCSG Redistribution Bill 41. 

MCSG’s operating fund will receive funds from the Travel Fund, the Capital Fund and student organization resource funds for the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement. 

“Because last year was an unusual year where a lot of the end of year programming didn’t happen, we had a lot of rollover funds,” Gilbert said. “So now all of the funding… we can now redirect into the operating fund, where it’s going to be able to be more useful to our student organizations.”

Some off-the-top expenses will remain in place in accordance with the financial code, such as funding for the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC)’s GSAT grant program, The New York Times subscriptions for students and funds for WMCN, The Mac Weekly and Macalester First Aid.

Initiatives that will not receive additional funding for the fall 2020 semester include the Student Travel Fund, Program Board campus lectures, the Community Fund and the Textbook Reserve Program. The Compostable Dishware Fund will not receive funding this semester because student organizations should not be handing out food at this time. 

The new bill states that each student organization will be allocated $100 to be used as Flexi Funds for fall 2020. Student organizations can submit additional allocation requests to the FAC, which will be voted upon by the legislative body. 

“The board of trustees approved a refund of the fall student activity fee, which means we need to reconsider what our funding strategy is going to look like,” Gilbert said.

The operating fund finances student organization events, while the capital fund will be providing aid for physical objects that will last three years or more. Both are to be used for student organizations.

Funds for the idea lab came into question, as well as collection of the spring activity fee with rollover. 

“This is for fall specifically,” Gilbert continued, “This is just to make sure we’re not leaving pools of money sitting around… and that we can instead take that back in and give it out so that as many events can happen as possible.” 

The bill passed with one opposed, the first this semester.  

During the Committee Updates section, AAC chair Kareem Greaney ’21 said that the AAC is restructuring the GSAT Textbook Reserve Program based on contact. The GSAT subsidy program for applying for grants will be going out at the end of the week.

During the election updates and announcements section, Kedir said that the filing period for the MCSG board ends Sept. 16 at midnight. The upcoming election may fill the vice presidency, the sustainability officer position, three positions for the class of 2021 and two class of 2022 representatives. 

This election will have a candidates meeting on Thursday, Sept. 17, after which there will be a campaign period from Sept. 19 to Sept. 26. The candidates forum is on Tuesday, Sept. 22, from 5:00 to 6:30pm. Candidate elections will be held from Sept. 27 to Sept. 30.