Editorial Cartoon
Levi Bulgar said he felt the Apportionment Board’s year went well.
But one area where the board faced problems was in its attendance.
Skyler King was removed because of a lack of attendance and Scott Parrino missed some meetings before he resigned for personal reasons.
According to AB bylaws, each member is allowed up to three excused absences and one unexcused abscence.
Bulgar, AB chair, stressed the importance of attending meetings every time the AB meets. He even video recorded some meetings so absent members could keep up.
If members are absent, they are required to give a valid excuse to the chair. The chair then decides whether to excuse the members or not.
If the chair feels a member is not committed to AB, he or she can ask the board to vote that member off, such as in the case of King.
In the past, Bulgar has said he has been lenient with absences this year and was more than willing to sit down with members who had conflicts with meeting times.
When AB lost two members earlier this year, there was concern about meeting quorum. AB consists of eight voting student members and three voting faculty.
AB needs seven voting members to meet quorum, and, at times, attendance came close to not meeting quorum.
Bulgar said that part of the problem was that there were several new members on AB this year.
“All but about three people were new members, including one new faculty member,” he said.
At meetings, some members said that another problem was that AB does not always have set meetings.
The board meets when the chair deems it necessary.
In some cases, members did not receive notice of meetings in time to rearrange their schedules.
Next year’s chair, Leah Pietraszewski, does not foresee running into many attendance problems.
“I will try to be firm in enforcing the attendance policy,” she said. “However, I will keep in mind that the students are here for school first, and AB is something they are taking time out of their schedules to do.”
Bulgar and Pietraszewski also anticipate several current AB members to return to the board next year.
“This year was a little spotty at times, but I felt that overall we did a good job,” Bulgar said.
This year, AB granted more allocations than previous years, including an allocation to the Student Recreation Center for more than $50,000.
“We handled it with a great deal of scrutiny and not a single allocation was shot down by the Student Government,” Bulgar said.
In addition to allocations, AB also went through the budget process with very few problems.
At last week’s meeting, AB adviser Ted Hart said this year’s budget process was one of the smoothest he can remember.
