KSA council hosts 2nd meeting within a week, makes more changes to the Regulations
Motions on electoral procedures and increasing special meeting honorariums were approved at the meeting
The next KSA council meeting is scheduled for Aug. 6 at 1:00 pm. (File photo)
The Kwantlen Student Association held a special council meeting on July 30 at 1:00 pm in Birch 250 on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Surrey campus and online via Microsoft Teams.
Council members Abhijeet Singh, Arnav Grover, Bhoomika Seera, Dishika Gour, Ishant Goyal, Jashanpreet Singh Sekhon, Jaskaran Sohal, Jasmine Kaur Kochhar, Keerat Goyal, Lesli Sangha, Nishant Kapoor, Paramvir Singh Johal, Ranveer Singh, Simranjot Sekhon, Suhana Gill, Yugveer Gill, and Yuvraj Bains were in attendance. Harpal Singh, Nitin Aggarwal, Yashanpreet Guron, and Simranjeet Singh were absent.
After amendments to the agenda were made, council moved in-camera with Executive Director Timothii Ragavan, Speaker of Council Amrinder Sandhu, and Executive Secretary Prabjot Deol. The speaker was removed from the in-camera session a few minutes later.
At 2:05 pm, the council went ex-camera and approved motions to appoint Ishant, Gour, Aggarwal, Suhana, Kochhar, Bains, and Kapoor to the Grassroots redevelopment committee. Kochhar, Bains, and Suhana were also appointed to the environmental and sustainability committee.
Council then passed a motion allowing the internal committee elections to take place regardless of the outcome of the executive committee elections, which had been discussed at the previous council meeting.
“Legal counsel mentioned to us that society cannot stop functioning if there are challenges to form an executive committee …. So, we are just following [their] advice,” Ishant said.
Motions to change the mission, values, and vision statements for the KSA were deferred to the next meeting.
Council then proposed a motion to decrease the number of business days to receive an attendance honorarium from 12 to five.
“The payment depends upon when we get all the documentation …. It does take us three-to-four business days [to approve the honoraria] after we receive all the information. So, I am not sure if it’s possible to do the first five days of the month,” said Accounting and Payroll Coordinator Amritpal Kaur.
“I think staff gets paid on time [and] pay doesn’t get delayed for staff, so I think that’s the collective decision coming from council,” Ishant said.
The staff’s pay period is based on a bi-weekly schedule of 14 days, said Records Coordinator and Archivist Kari Michaels.
“A lead time of 5 business days is unrealistic because the minutes may not be immediately available,” Sangha wrote in the meeting chat.
Council then settled on changing the waiting time to 10 business days at the end of each month instead of five. The motion was passed.
Council then passed several motions to amend the Regulations to remove proxies — a person authorized to act on behalf of someone else — to be consistent with Robert’s Rules of Order, which doesn’t allow them.
Next on the agenda was a motion to increase the president’s additional pay from $100 to $200 for “the additional time that they contribute to the work of the Society over and above the functions and duties of that member of the Executive Committee’s primary portfolio.”
The additional amount would be added to the bi-weekly stipend of $1,592.80 that members of the executive committee receive. The motion was indefinitely postponed.
A motion was then approved to amend the electoral procedures, which now require candidates to seek written permission from faculty members to campaign before class begins and limit their campaigning to no more than three minutes per classroom.
Another motion was approved to hold polls at “conspicuous locations, including locations in or about the Society’s offices on each campus,” at the discretion of the chief returning officer in addition to providing special notice for advanced polling.
A motion was also passed to limit the duration for regular meetings of council to two hours instead of four unless extended by a two-thirds vote of council.
A motion was proposed to distribute confidential documents, which would be numbered and printed, only during a council’s in-camera session. The copies are to be collected before the conclusion of the in-camera session. For councillors joining online, “documents shall be sent with specific, unremovable marks or signs unique to each individual.”
Council then passed a motion to make special meeting honoraria the same as regular meeting honoraria, which was previously one half of the regular meeting honoraria. Ishant said the budgetary impact for this change would be “very minimal.”
The council also amended the Regulations to hold meetings of council only on KPU’s Surrey campus.
“Historically, council is required to meet on each of the campuses during the busier semesters to ensure that students at each campus have an opportunity to interact with and engage and participate in council meetings, if they so choose,” Michaels said.
Advocacy Coordinator John O’Brian said this change is making council less accessible to students at other campuses.
“If the students have questions, they’re more than welcome to connect with us. And if we need to go to that campus, we’re welcome to,” Ishant said.
Council is paid for transportation as part of the honorarium individual members receive to attend meetings on each campus, O’Brian said.
The meeting ended at 3:54 pm. The remaining motions were deferred to the next meeting.
The next council meeting is scheduled for Aug. 6 at 1:00 pm. Scheduled council meetings are currently not listed on the KSA’s website. Interested students can email info@kusa.ca to join.
