Senate committees back in action

The Portland State Student Senate Finance Committee commenced activity at the start of the school year and regularly communicates with the Student Fee Committee as expected, said Daniel Lyons, fourth-year senator and president pro tempore of the Senate.

The finance committee is one of two standing committees within the Senate, both of which failed to meet regularly last year, according to Lyons.

Both the finance and coordinating committees began meeting at the request of the student government Judicial Board after reviewing Senate bylaws, which require that the committees meet.

“We oversee the budget of ASPSU, some of which is given to the senate for campaigns,” said finance committee Chair Katie Markey, a political science student in her third year at Portland State. “We are in the process of rewriting our own bylaws to make sure they are pertinent. We are just getting things up and running again.”

The five-member finance committee sends a representative to almost all of the SFC’s biweekly meetings, at which it represents the concerns of the senate and is allowed to participate in discussion.

“We get to have a voice representing our senate constituencies to the SFC and can act as ex officio [non-voting] members,” Markey said.

The Senate currently has 22 of its 25 possible positions filled through either election or appointment, and the members represent the 28,000-plus Portland State students.