The Associated Students (A.S.) Senate voted to decrease the stipend amount for finance committee members from last year and eliminated one member from the recipient list.

The annual budget hearing stipends were decreased for finance committee members to $200, $50 less from last year. Finance committee Senate representative Domingo Gonzalez was excluded from the original amendment, which would have awarded a stipend to the senate representative.

The discussion prior to the amendments approval brought up issues of whether senators should be paid for his or her service.

The stipends compensate the committee for their work on the annual budget hearings. The annual budget hearings are from Jan. 5-7 and 12-13 and last eight hours per day. The committee members are required to work all budget hearings.

The senate passed a bill that gives finance committee members Lisset Jones, Todd Cook and Alex Kleckner a $200 stipend during the annual budget hearing, $50 less than last year.

Math and Science Senator II John Barry Neilan proposed to allocate $50 to Gonzalez, but it ultimately failed to pass.

“(If a) senator is doing senator work, (he or she) should be compensated,” Neilan said.

One argument against the original amendment was that the finance committee senate representative would unfairly get a second stipend for work that has already expected from Gonzalez when he accepted the post, said Austin Ysais, At Large Senator I. In addition, students would gain more interest in senate positions because of the profit of stipends, Ysais added.

“I feel it’s a very slippery road to go down,” Ysais added.

The finance senate representative position though was difficult to fill in the beginning of the semester, said A.S. President Abel Pacheco.

If one senator received a stipend for their participation in a committee, Education Senator I Macy Davis said, then there should be a stipend for all senators in similar situations.

Since the committee members work eight hours for five days in winter break, Neilan said, “To give them $200 for that is completely reasonable.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the agenda wasn’t available in print to the audience, but it was displayed on a projector behind the president and vice president. There was a delay in the meeting when it took a few minutes for the president and vice president to adjust the text size of the agenda on display. A few adjustments to the new meeting format, said Omar Gonzalez, Cal State Long Beach ASI vice president, was to make it visible so the gallery can see it clearly.

“Make it more visible to the board members so the senators don’t have to turn in awkward angles,” Gonzalez added.

The idea to project the agenda came from Cal State Long Beach’s Associated Students, Inc. Senate meetings. The agenda, minutes, resolutions, and any other attachments, Gonzalez said, are complied on a PDF and projected onto the screen.

“It’s saving us a lot of money,” Gonzalez said.

Pacheco invited Gonzalez and the CSULB ASI president Chris Chavez to the campus Tuesday.