SGA Senate Recap: 20 April 2026

Image Courtesy of SGA

By Anthony Curioso

To conclude a busy legislative year, the SGA Senate held its final regularly scheduled meeting on April 20, 2026, at 8:22 p.m. in Great Room B at the Pryzbyla Center. This meeting started with a seven-minute administrative delay while Student Body Vice President Matthew Moskowski, a junior business major, waited for his required documents to be printed.

During public comment, the main topic of conversation was the proposed executive budget, on which several students voiced support, in part because it included a clause to replace laundry machines in the residence halls.

Other contributors to public comment included outgoing Student Body President Michael Kish, who shared a “farewell address” of sorts, saying, “I think SGA is a wonderful opportunity to do some real good on campus.”

The first item of new business for the Senators at the April 20 meeting was to hear the presentation of the Executive Budget for the 2026-27 school year by Jack Hermes, a junior business major who serves as a senator for the Class of 2027 and the Student Body President-elect.

In an email to The Tower staff, Hermes explained that his Executive Budget is “unprecedented in multiple senses” and was developed in consultation with previous SGA executive teams, University administrators, and current and former senators. Ultimately, these discussions led Hermes and his team to make the following decisions: creating a line-item list of expenses that fall under “president’s discretionary” spending, decreasing SGA operating expenses, tripling the total allotment request from previous years to fund “special projects” around campus, among others.

During the full Senate presentation, Hermes had the following comments on his budget proposal: “I want to start by thanking those of you who reached out with your concerns, almost all of which have been taken into account. In addition to itemizing the ‘president’s discretionary’ section of the budget, the bill I shall present later this evening will make sure the Executive spends our allocation properly. We have funds opening up and want to spend them now in the best way we can. I have spoken to the University Chief Financial Officer, who helped us determine appropriate and inappropriate sources of funding.”

Ultimately, Hermes’ budget was approved by the Senate, with the vote falling 19-2, with one senator absent from the meeting and thus unable to vote. As no senators gave any comments during the meeting indicating their questions or reasoning for their votes on the budget, it is not entirely clear why there were two votes against passing the budget.

The presentation of Resolution 020 (A Resolution to Memorialize Blessed Fulton Sheen), sponsored by Anthony Ozog of the class of 2026, followed Hermes’ budget presentation. 

Ozog shared the following in defense of his Resolution: “St. Josemaria said, ‘We need saints everywhere,’ and it seems pertinent to honor a man who, while not yet a saint, was a CUA faculty member and would be a great person to memorialize on campus.”

Following the debate period, the senators voted unanimously to pass Resolution 020; however, Hermes and at least one other senator did not vote on this resolution, as they were out of the room on a point of personal privilege. 

Next on the agenda was Resolution 021 (A Resolution to Restore the Upper Caldwell Staircase). Sponsored by Billy Otto of the College of Engineering, Physics, and Computing, the sponsoring senator explained his Resolution by saying, “All this does is ask the administration to hire contractors to provide a quote for restoring this staircase.”

Senator Otto received a clarification question from Felipe Avila of the Conway School of Nursing, who remarked that “it does seem odd, from a health perspective, that the resolution explicitly said that work would not be done to manage the asbestos in the staircase.” Otto attempted to dissuade this concern by stating that “asbestos is only a problem if it gets disturbed.”

Ultimately, Resolution 021 passed unanimously.

Next was Resolution 022, A Resolution to Establish Pre-Drafting Expectations for Senate Legislation, sponsored by freshman politics major and Student Body Vice President-elect Brinkley Colquitt (who currently represents the class of 2029 in the senate). Colquitt shared the following in his presentation of Resolution 022: “My first thought about this was that it would be quicker to be done as a resolution, but I have misread the bylaws and believe this is best addressed as a bill.”

Joseph Wages of the School of Arts and Sciences moved to refer this resolution to the Committee on Rules and Administration due to similar logistical concerns; this motion was passed unanimously.

The final two resolutions of the evening were both sponsored by Joshua Ortiz of the School of Theology and Religious Studies: Resolution 023 (A Resolution to Implement a 48-Hour Notice Period) and Resolution 024 (A Resolution Concerning the Implementation of Mandatory Attendance at University Research Day). In proposing Resolution 023, Ortiz and his co-sponsors requested that the University provide 48 hours notice to the University community whenever large-scale events are scheduled that would provide a significant disruption to campus life, such as the University having hosted voting stations for the recent Peruvian presidential election (which caused much of the Pryzbyla and DuFour Centers to be closed to non-voters and traffic to be restricted on John McCormack Road Northeast). 

In defense of Resolution 023, Ortiz shared the following: “I did reach out to University Communications and received no response. The recent Peruvian election voting caused multiple problems with navigating around campus, and this resolution would prevent future problems because students could take the notice period to plan for what they are going to do on the day of such an event.”

In defense of Resolution 024, meanwhile, Ortiz said, “The University should not have the right to put an overarching requirement on all students to attend Research Day, but individual professors should have the right to assign students to attend Research Day as long as they inform students of this assignment at the beginning of the course. Additionally, Research Day has no significance on whether most students will be able to get a job after we graduate.”

Resolution 024 received support from Senator Avila, who remarked that “There was an overwhelming state of shock among students upon learning of this requirement. I think the University ought to incentivize students to come to Research Day, but by no means should they treat us like children by forcing us to attend this event.”

The main points of criticism for Resolution 024 came from Senator Ozog of the class of 2026, who said, “I did take this Resolution to prayer, and while I now agree that Research Day should be voluntary, I have several amendments that I would like to propose regarding the principles behind this resolution.”

Ultimately, Resolution 023 passed unanimously. The vote on Resolution 024, on the other hand, was unanimous in favor of referring it to the Committee on Campus Life, due to several logistical concerns and a desire to curb what was already a rather lengthy debate period.

Hermes concluded the legislative session by introducing Bill 009, A Bill to Mandate Quarterly Audits of the SGA Executive Budget. In defense of Bill 009, Hermes said: “It is important to reinforce trust in Executive XII and be able to hold future SGA executive boards accountable for their spending.”

Emma Bonney, of the College of Arts and Sciences, succeeded in proposing an amendment to the bill clarifying procedures on what should happen if the Senate deems Executive Board spending inappropriate; this amendment, and the bill itself, both passed by unanimous votes.

Updates from Vice President Moskowski upon the conclusion of the legislative agenda included the following: “This is our final regular meeting of the year, but as you have guessed, we will need a special session to consider Treasury Board nominees and the two resolutions that were sent back to committee this evening.”

Open-floor comments followed Moskowski’s updates. During this period, several senators expressed their optimism that they could iron out the kinks in Ortiz’s Research Day resolution. Hermes pointed out that senators ought to make any recommended changes in advance of submitting legislation to avoid excessively amending it during Senate meetings.