The Student Senate Wednesday will approve a new Recognized Student Organization, hear a special presentation from the President’s Council and seat seven new senate members.

The purpose of the new Eastern Illinois University Student Federation, the RSO scheduled for approval, is to advance and promote educational and political issues, according to its constitution. The organization is affiliated with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.

A special presentation from the President’s Council, which is comprised of the vice presidents and interim President Lou Hencken, will likely deal with pending budget cuts, Joe Robbins, speaker of the senate, said Tuesday.

The university has been asked to return about $2.3 million to the state to cover an impending state budget deficit for this fiscal year because of the dwindling tax revenue during the recession.

Hencken told the Council on University Planning and Budget Friday that the university would cover the budget cut by slashing most of the budget for equipment expenditures and also by recalling funds from various university departments and offices.

The semester began with 11 vacant senate seats, of which seven are scheduled to be filled by Eastern students Lucy Boone, Lisa Flam, Allison West, Lindsay Baum, Amy Leonard, Jessica Jarrett and Nicole Hodges.

Two senate bills will be presented allocating money from the senate budget for the next Illinois Board of Higher Education Student Advisory Committee meeting Feb. 2 and 3. Members attending are Robbins, Student Body President Hugh O’Hara, senate members Marty Ruhaak and Ronnie Deedrick and alternate voting member John Voyt, Robbins said.

The other bill will allocate $2,893 from the senate budget for three senate members attending the Conference on Student Government Associations at Texas A&M University, which is a conference for student government members to network and brainstorm on problems and solutions. Senate members attending this conference are Ruhaak, BiIl Davidson and Alison Mormino.

In other business, the senate will continue discussion on two bylaw changes. One of the changes will remove senate staff maintenance from the duties of the speaker of the senate, because senate staff no longer exist. The other deals with student representation.

Under the current representation system, senate members are required to spend one hour per week at an RSO table to give information about senate activities to students. This system also created the RSO Council, a weekly meeting to which all RSO’s are invited to be informed about senate proceedings.

The bylaw change would change the system back to the old system in which senate members sign up to make a presentation regularly at meetings of the RSO of their choice.

Senate members last week discussed advantages and disadvantages to both systems and agreed the current system needs to be changed. However, members disagreed on reverting back to the old.