it's been years in the making, but the GSS and SGA have agreed to a change in the bylaws of the jointly-governed student legal services office. the change was approved unanimously at a meeting of the SLSO board earlier in the month, and overwhelmingly at an SGA meeting last week, thanks in large part to the support of the SGA's executive branch as well as its speaker. it had passed unanimously at GSS's september meeting.
previously, the paragraph in the bylaws regarding funding of the SLSO stated that the SGA pays 75% of the cost of the office, while the GSS pays 25%. it has been changed to a formula in which each government funds the office in proportion to the number of fee-paying members in the organization. for example, if the SGA has 18,000 fee paying members and the GSS has 3000, then the SGA's share of the office's budget is 18,000/(18,000+3000) or roughly 85%, and the GSS's share is the remainder. these example figures are roughly the current state of affairs.
the GSS has maintained for years that given the size that the office's budget has grown to, its share is unreasonably large. for example, for fiscal year 2005-6, the board did not approve a budget for the office, but the office requested, and the SGA approved its 75% share of, a more than $400,000 budget. such a budget would make the SLSO about one third larger (in terms of budget) than the GSS, which would make the GSS's 25% contribution more than $100,000, or one third of its budget. the GSS's actual contribution was $52,000, or one sixth of its budget -by far our largest expenditure for any budget line other than staff.
the new language in the bylaws also emphasizes that the SLSO board's recommended budget for the office are not automatically binding on each government - a reality that had existed but had not been emphasized in the language of the bylaws. this state of affairs has contributed to the friction between the SGA and GSS. this past april, for example, the SGA's university policy committee considered a resolution which would condemn the GSS for not paying its share, and threatened a lawsuit to recover what the committee perceived as money owed by the GSS to the SGA.
what this change does is put into policy what's been effectively our practice. since the GSS has for years been unable to meet its 25% obligation, we have been paying in the 15% range and having the SGA cover the rest. this has been probably the main source of friction between two student governments that really ought to have been working together much more closely. with this change in effect, we expect joint governance of agencies - as well as joint work more generally - to be far more collegial than they have been. one benefit of the GSS and SGA working together has been the reactivation of the campus center/student union commission, whose function is to provide student input into management of the campus center and student union buildings.
other things on the agenda for the student legal services office include: getting criminal defense privileges and a new attorney to handle such cases, having the office's operations audited, and equalizing the graduate and undergraduate schedules for service fees.
