Student Senate in dark

Last Tuesday, the Student Senate Finance Committee met to discuss the finance report of the Student Government Association and allocate funds to needy organizations.
SGA Treasurer Evan Taylor, a freshman accounting and mass communications major from Houston, who missed three previous finance committee meetings and had not responded to the Senate’s request for a budget, attended the meeting.
Taylor cited deaths in her family as the reason she had not been able to provide the report.
Senator Bino Rasedisa, a senior economics major from Gaborno, Batsowana, said although he understood Taylor’s situation, she still had a job to do.
“Why didn’t you appoint someone in your absence to take care of the report while you were gone?” he asked Taylor.
Taylor did not present the committee with a hard copy of the report and as of print time, the DIGEST was unable to secure a copy from Taylor, SGA president Jamal Taylor, the comptroller’s office or the Office of Student Affairs.
Taylor did say, however, that the executive branch is allotted $20,000 in salaries and wages. Of that amount, from her records, only $2,312 has been spent. Taylor said $654.83 went to Taylor’s salary; a payment of $99.90 went to an insurance payment of a Southern University staff member; SGA’s Chief of Staff Jared Clayton was paid $400 and $723 were spent.
Senators Rasedisa and Phillip Wallace, a junior political science major from Baton Rouge, questioned Taylor’s calculation because the amount totaled $1,877.73, which was $434.27 less than what Taylor said has been spent.
“Hasn’t the Vice President been paid?” asked Senator Wallace.
Vice President Stasha Rhodes, then Interim SGA President said she’d been paid $500, which would then make Taylor’s budget over by $65.73 ($2,377.73).
Acting Vice President Phillip Robinson, junior political science major Baton Rouge, suggested that Taylor return to the senate meeting the following week and present the budget since there were discrepancies in the budget.
Also on the committee’s agenda was SGA President Jamal Taylor requesting Chief Justice LaCourtney Brooks be paid $2,400.
According to Senator Robinson, Taylor first approached the finance committee at the beginning of the school term to pay former Chief Justice Christopher Richardson the $2400 to help offset his financial needs.
“When Richardson was removed from office, we never thought about it again until President Taylor voiced that he wanted Brooks to be paid the money.”
A request Taylor said is untrue.
“I never said I wanted Brooks to be paid $2,400. I made the suggestion to the Senate that I thought every head of a branch should be paid something. The Secretary of the Senate, Jerrica Skidmore, has a monthly salary of $300, but I don’t set or approve budgets, that’s their job.” Taylor said that until such legislation passes his desk, he is not concerning himself with hearsay.
Wallace said despite Skidmore’s salary, she has not been paid.
Either way, paying the Chief Justice would require a modification to the Bylaws, since Article 10 Section 2 says, “No more than one thousand dollars…may be allocated to the Judicial Branch for the purposes of salaries during the fiscal year.”