Editor’s note: With spring UCSU elections scheduled for April 6—10, the CU Independent is giving students a closer look at just what the University of Colorado Student Union is and what it does for them. Leading up to April 6, we will publish a story in our series every week giving readers a better picture of how their student government operates.
The most active branch of CU’s UCSU is the Legislative Council and the cost centers the council oversees.
The Legislative Council is the policy-making body of UCSU and oversees the cost centers on campus. Cost centers are organizations of buildings on campus that require funding. Funding ranges from a few thousand to a few million dollars, depending on the center. Legislative Council has final approval of budget and is in charge of programmatic operations of cost centers.
The Council is divided into two houses: the Council of Colleges and Schools and Representative Council. Representative Council is composed of nine representatives—five in the fall and four in the spring—who all serve a one-year term. CCS also has nine representatives, one for each college on campus, according to the UCSU Web site.
There are eight joint advisory boards managing the operations of the cost centers. The joint boards include Finance Board, UMC Board, Recreation Board, Air Board, Health Board, Women’s Resource Center Board, Environmental Center Board and the Cultural Events Board. Within each board, there is a chair who oversees everything and reports to Legislative Council.
Cost centers include the Student Recreation Center, Wardenburg Health Center, UMC, Environmental Center, Student Organizations Finance Office, Women’s Resource Center, Off-Campus Student Services, Student Legal Services, Cultural Events Board, Volunteer Clearing House, KVCU Radio 1190 and the Student Outreach and Retention Center for Equity. The money required by cost centers goes toward maintenance, salaries and equipment costs.
The three biggest cost centers receiving the most funding are Wardenburg Health Center, the Rec Center and the UMC. Each center usually receives somewhere between $3 million and $5 million annually, which is responsible for over a third of UCSU’s budget.
Some students know of UCSU through the budget of $30 million they have to work with, and the recent publicity concerning the election. Kent Welborn, a senior integrative physiology major, said the unusual election this year caught his eye.
“I saw the headline how only one group is running in the election,” Welborn said.
Proposed legislation is discussed at weekly planning meetings consisting of the Tri-executives—Dustin Farivar, Ryan Biehle and Victoria Garcia—and the rest of the Legislative Council.
The process starts with a first reading; the bill is reviewed and voted on at the next full council meeting. The second reading is during the next council meeting for a final vote on whether to approve the bill or not. If the bill passes the second reading, the Tri-executives sign the bill.
Tri-executive Ryan Biehle, a senior political science major, said he advocates the need to look out for students and improve the campus.
“Our biggest priority is keeping tuition and student fees down,” Biehle said.
The Tri-executives said they are working to do that by lowering student fees this year.
“We sign off on bills we think is in the best interest to students,” Biehle said. “Recently we drafted bills to increase access to blind and deaf students by including Braille and audio to ATMs on campus.”
The Legislative Council meets every Thursday at 7 p.m. in UMC 247, and is open to all who want to see what the student body representatives are doing with student money.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Adrian Kun at Adrian.kun@colorado.edu.
