Wednesday’s Graduate Student Council (GSC) meeting ran the gamut of issues, from special fees policy to campaign spending caps for ASSU executive races to the appointment of an internal auditor for student group finances.

Special Fees and Funding Abuse

In an effort to increase fiscal responsibility in student groups, the council approved $500 to pay a new internal auditor, Julia Guo, to investigate possible abuse of funds by student groups. She will work at a rate of $100 per investigation, and will be hired on a case-by-case basis.

Following concern over record numbers of students requesting special fees refunds, council members voted unanimously to strike the current joint bylaw that says the SUID numbers of students requesting special fee refunds may be released. The council plans to create an alternate system, possibly allowing the release of a list of students’ names instead.

Additionally, two bills relating to special fees refund rates were approved at the meeting. The first, the refund bill, shortens the refund request period from three to two weeks and could allow the ASSU to respond faster to budget changes.

The second, the buffer bill, moves to try spending some of the money currently in the refund buffer funds in response to some special fees groups’ nervousness about high refund rates.

The funding committee also extended the deadline for response from a group president or CFO suspected of funding misuse from 48 hours to one week.

ASSU Executive Update

ASSU President David Gobaud, a co-terminal student in computer science, called Tuesday’s changes to Cardinal Care by the University “phenomenal.”

Starting Sept. 1, Cardinal Care, an optional health insurance plan for Stanford students, will decrease four percent in cost and require that summer months be included in a buyer’s plan; it will also cover transgender surgery. The University also offered a dependent health care plan on Tuesday, the first of its kind since 2006.

“[It’s] the best news of the year,” Gobaud said.

Gobaud also announced a goal of capping spending in races for ASSU executive positions. The ASSU have developed two options: a limit of $2,000 where the candidate can still use $750 from public financing, or an expansion of public financing to $1,000 for each candidate with a total cap of $2,500, combined with an increase of required petition signatures from 200 to 400.

Partially in response to a lack of precedent, the council established and unanimously approved a process for the replacement of the ASSU vice president in the event that the current vice president vacates for any reason, allowing the president to make an appointment subject to legislative approval.

The zero-percent waste program has seen the installation of compost, recycling and trash bins at the Axe and Palm, Russo Café at Munger and Union Square at Tresidder, Gobaud reported, and is trying to expand to Treehouse, CoHo and Ray’s.

The State of the Association is slated for Feb. 18.

The executives have also been interviewing applicants for the Haiti relief “czar” position, which they said would pay $500 for the year and be responsible for coordination of Stanford fundraising for future disasters, too.

Other Business

The Board of Judicial Affairs has a new opening in spring quarter, for which Tommy Tobin ’10 has been nominated. Interviews for the Stanford Student Enterprises board of directors will take place over the next few weeks, and applications for Nominations Committee will go live in the next few days.

The GSC also announced that Stanford will not be renewing its membership with the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS).

“This group has a bad reputation in [Washington] D.C.,” said GSC financial officer Ryan Peacock. The council decided the $500 membership costs would be better spent sending individual Stanford representatives to lobby in the capital.

The GSC also approved funding at Wednesday’s meeting for events sponsored by the Hindu Students Association, the Persian Students Association, Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics and the Organization of International Health.