The vice president of the Student Government Association tabled the student senate’s decision to purchase two computers for executive board members after the senate voted to suspend its constitutional bylaws to immediately purchase the computers last week.Cortne Oser, freshman senator, proposed a motion to purchase two computers for Jennifer Smith, vice president, and Whitney Dupuy, director of student rights and grievances, at last week’s SGA meeting. The SGA finance committee found the motion highly favorable and the senate voted in favor of the purchase.
Smith said her computer randomly shuts down in the middle of work. Dupuy’s computer belongs to Student Educators and Leaders, which has requested the computer back after John Kerry, former director of rights and grievances and SEALS member, brought it there during his time in office.
According to the SGA constitution, purchases by the organization totaling more than $150 are tabled for a week. Peter Jenkins, senator at large, said the bylaw exists to allow senators and executive board members to analyze expensive purchases and decide if they are necessary. “The limits are there for a reason,” Jenkins said.
Smith said the senate voted to suspend the bylaw so the computers could be purchased and delivered as soon as possible. She said a purchase earlier in the semester took too long to come in. “The sooner you do it, the better,” Smith said.
Some senators took issue with suspending the bylaw. “One week is not that big a deal,” Jenkins said. “If the job was able to be done before, it could be done now.”
Smith said she decided to table the purchase after the meeting despite the vote to suspend the bylaws because of the concerned senators who spoke against the decision. “Everyone was on edge,” Smith said. “There are better things for us to do than argue about this.”
The purchase, totaling $2,170.84, is for two Optiplex 760 Dell computers, monitors and copies of 2007 software. Smith said the SGA requested cheaper computers, but the University’s purchasing department required the organization to purchase the Optiplex 760 computers, which were already discounted for the school.
In an e-mail to the SGA office, Patricia Breaux, procurement manager in purchasing, said the computers are on state contract at a great price. “We do not allow purchases of computers that are not on state contract or that may not be compatible with our mainframe system,” Breaux said.
Smith said the SGA’s computers are supposed to be updated every five years, but she felt the problems with her computer were not a serious issue at first, and the SGA did not realize Dupuy’s computer belonged to SEALS. She said she uses her computer to research and to type up the agenda for SGA meetings, and Dupuy records all of her contacts and information for student grievances on her computer. “You don’t want just anybody to have all of that information.”
Jenkins said he supported the purchase and agreed the SGA needs the equipment to function properly and better promote itself, but the constitution needs to be followed. He said the SGA needs to amend its constitution if its members feel the bylaw is unnecessary. “But until that’s done, we have to follow the rules.”
Smith said suspending bylaws to speed up purchases is something the SGA needs to look into. “In the long run, we could have used better planning.
