With cultural clubs’ graduation ceremony finance requests right around the corner, the Unallocated Reserves Account fund was lessened considerably at the Associated Students Senate meeting on Tuesday.

With several members of the Filipino American Student Association looking on from the gallery in the University Student Union’s Thousand Oaks Room, the Senate approved $6,000 for the group’s upcoming Pilipino Cultural Night.

This new allocation came after the group already received funding for the event, and was specially placed on the agenda by A.S. President Adam Salgado.

The amount listed on the agenda as a possible allocation was $4,000, but the amount was not recommended by the finance committee, which usually recommends allocations to the Senate.

“This reconsideration didn’t go before my committee,” Director of Finance Adam Haverstock said during the Senate meeting.

This allocation brings the IRA account down to $19,820. Each spring, more money is requested for cultural clubs’ graduations, an annual occurrence that could put the Senate into a tight spot with the money they have available.

Several students who spoke in front of the Senate during the meeting’s Open Forum portion referenced the financial restraints the Senate is under, and said they would appreciate any amount given to their own event.

In the Open Forum, several students pled their organization’s case to the Senate.

Two leaders of the Bandersnatch, a publication of students’ writing and art, requested money for the second issue of the magazine. They had to dip into their credit card balances for the first magazine, and do not wish to repeat the experience.

The finance committee had recommended $1,100 for the Bandersnatch, but the Senate made an allocation of $1,750, in part due to encouragement of the program by their peers, such as Vice President Sarah Jackson.

“I just want to point out what a unique opportunity” the Bandersnatch provides, Jackson said, referring to the fact that students get published through the magazine yet still retain control over what they produce for the publication.

Student John Paul Vera, representing the CSUN Greens, came in to request $1,000 for the club’s Supershow. Out of the $1,000, he said, half would go to the speaker and the other half to advertising.

However, the Senate already approved $2,000 for the Supershow, and the request from the CSUN Greens made it onto the budget for Tuesday’s meeting through special circumstances.

“This recommendation on here was not put through my committee,” Haverstock said. “It is not the wish of the finance committee that we contribute additional funds.”

In the end, the Senate agreed, and the request was killed.

Also in the Open Forum, A.S. Director of Political Awareness Dina Cervantes spoke out on the work done by the California State Student Association last weekend at San Diego State University.

At the CSSA meeting, the board of directors decided to support the California Faculty Association in its ongoing negotiations with the California State University system.

CSUN’s A.S. has yet to release a resolution with their own position on the salary struggle.

“I’m here urging you guys ? to do this soon,” Cervantes said. “I hope the resolution will be made public as soon as possible.”

Salgado said he was pleased by everything the CSSA accomplished at SDSU.

“I’ve been reporting to the board that the CSSA has been disappointing me ?but this weekend” the CSSA accomplished more, he said.

Elsewhere in the meeting, Student Production and Campus Entertainment Director Jennifer Santos announced that the Academy Award-winning and Al Gore-produced documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” will be shown at CSUN on April 19.

“That’s a really good idea, and very powerful (with) what is going on now,” Santos said.

Correction
It was incorrectly reported that a request put before the Associated Students Senate by the CSUN Greens for their Supershow event was killed; rather, it was given an extra $200.