The Tartan

by Mirren Hibbert
Staffwriter

Carnegie Mellon’s student government failed to pass a routine spending bill, leading to a $60,568 cut in the Activities Board (AB) budget, as graduate student representatives walked out of a joint meeting of the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) and the Undergraduate Senate on Thursday night. 

While the Undergraduate Senate overwhelmingly voted to approve the AB Budget, GSA Representatives walked out. 

The vote — which would have ratified the decision of the Student Leadership Council (SLC), an executive body within Student Government, to roughly maintain AB’s current funding for next year — is meant to be uncontroversial, with student legislators approving an amount near the SLC recommendation. This year, SLC approved a $499,570 budget for AB, roughly the same as their allocation for the 2024-25 school year.

The initial ratification vote, though, failed narrowly after undergraduates overwhelmingly approved the proposal, but graduate student representatives rejected it. 

This gave way to a hail of motions, questions, and discussion points on whether to keep AB at or near their current level, cut them to the statutory minimum of $439,002, or find a compromise in between. 

Halfway through the discussion, however, a group of graduate representatives walked out, costing the GSA quorum, causing the meeting’s adjournment, and cutting AB by an additional $60,568, down to the statutory minimum.

Under Student Government rules, JFC determines the budget amount for every student organization on campus, and the joint meeting in the spring ratifies these budgets. These, too, were approved with little dissent.

Afterwards, Aditya Khandelwal, an outgoing GSA vice president for Graduate Student Life, introduced a proposal to override the Student Government Fiscal Policy. 

Under current rules, the Activities Board (AB) is guaranteed to receive 20–23 percent of the Student Activities Fee; the proposal aimed to remove that guarantee and lower AB’s funding below the 20 percent threshold. The presenter argued that AB had violated its constitution by failing to replace its Finance Chair after the position became vacant during winter break. AB leadership responded that they had restructured the position for efficiency after earlier failures, but the presenter maintained that the Finance Chair’s responsibilities — including holding the purchasing card and tracking AB’s spending — were vital to maintaining fiscal accountability. 

He criticized AB’s financial practices, citing a $5,000 expenditure on Stanley cups for students. During questioning, the AB president acknowledged that Stanley cups were distributed in a previous year but stated that no such purchases were made this year.

Voting on whether to override the minimum funding requirement quickly became chaotic. A motion to remove the 20 percent minimum passed in GSA by a vote of 45–14–4 but failed in the Undergraduate Senate, preserving AB’s guaranteed baseline funding. 

Subsequent proposals sought to set AB’s allocation at specific percentages. 

A motion to set the allocation at 22.8 percent — slightly higher than the original 22.76 percent request — passed the Senate (20–0–6) but failed in GSA (18–28–2). Additional motions were introduced to set funding at 22 percent, 20 percent, 21.36 percent, and 21.5 percent. 

However, as the discussion continued, GSA representatives walked out in coordination, quorum was lost, and no further votes could be held. As a result, AB’s budget was automatically set to 20 percent, or $439,002, under Student Government rules.