ASWSU is endeavoring to develop new bylaws after the Services & Activity Fee Committee voted to move the budget management of some smaller Registered Student Organizations under the umbrella of the ASWSU senate.

The S & A Fee committee determines how the mandatory S & A fees collected by the university will be dispersed to various RSOs. The S & A Fee Committee determined during its deliberations on April 3 that beginning next year KUGR, Allegro, WSU Performing Arts, LandEscapes, and Cable 8 will petition the ASWSU senate instead of the S & A Fee Committee to receive funding.

The S & A Fee allocation process is already long and arduous, and committee members said delegating some of the responsibility to the ASWSU senate could help improve efficiency.

“The problem that we have right now is we have more and more Registered Student Organizations that are coming to the S & A Fee Committee,” ASWSU President Taylor Hennessey said. “That’s probably not the best way to do it, and we need to figure out a way we can circumnavigate that process.”

Even after passing the measure, some S & A committee members said they are worried about the ASWSU senate’s qualifications when it comes to dealing with the intricacies of a major budget.

“The ASWSU senate is made up of undergraduates, oftentimes sophomores, juniors, who may not have the experience in budget allocation,” said Christine Rushton, a student leader sitting on the S &A Fee Committee. “They do, because they do work with RSOs to allocate a certain budget, but at the same time they don’t have somebody like Joan King, the (chief university) budget officer, sitting at the table saying ‘No you can’t do this, no you can’t do that.’”

Rushton said she also realizes because the senate is representative of all the different colleges, it has the potential to do a better job building personal relationships with RSOs.

“So the idea is if a student group came to them, at least somebody on the senate should know them, know their benefit to students as a whole and be able to advocate for them one way or another,” Rushton said.

Some of the members of the RSOs involved in the shuffle are tentatively concerned about the new form of oversight.

“We just want to make sure, content wise, we’re independent,” Cable 8 President Herman Meier said.

Hennessey acknowledged concerns are out there, but he said he’s not interested in limiting anyone’s editorial control.

“For me, this is student body government,” Hennessey said. “I’m not out there to censor people, and really that’s not something ASWSU should ever get into.”

Hennessey said censorship is an impeachable offense, and in the event an RSO felt stifled there are already systems in place for the RSO to take recourse. Even with that check in place already, Hennessey said he wants to further codify ASWSU’s limits in the new bylaws.

“We’re working on it,” Hennessey said. “I don’t have the best answer for you yet just because we haven’t had that discussion of where we actually want to go, but it is on our radar.”

Hennessey is planning to meet with the RSOs in question on Wednesday to discuss any concerns and communicate the details of the new funding model.