By Steve Babcock

After controversy and debates spanning several weeks, the newly created Committee to Examine Northeastern University Student Fees (CENUSF) was dissolved by Student Government Association President Richard Schwabacher shortly after its inception.

Schwabacher exercised his power of presidential veto and dissolved the committee during SGA’s final meeting of the winter quarter on March 6.

CENUSF had received a one year mandate from SGA and the university to investigate how money from each student fee on campus is spent. As a result of Schwabacher’s decision to veto the committee, all powers of review with regards to student fees have been shifted to the University Budget Committee.

“The repercussions have not been indicative of what the committee was attempting to do,” said Schwabacher, referring to the committee’s attempts to look fairly into the Resident Student Fee.

Many senators in SGA who opposed the creation of CENUSF argued that the Resident Student Association was being unfairly singled out. Each fee under the scope of the committee would have been reviewed for one week; however, RSA’s Resident Student Fee was given two weeks of review and was the first and, ironically, the only fee to be looked at.

Schwabacher said that RSA had been supportive of the committee in both creation and execution, but that the body that governs all students living on campus did not agree with the committee from the outset.

The veto, which Schwabacher said was being enacted “with the author’s consent,” is basically the only voting power the president has within the Senate. The SGA President is a nonvoting member but, according to the constitution can “approve or veto legislation within one week of the Senate’s approval.”

It was Schwabacher’s first use of his veto power since becoming president.

SGA’s Vice President for Financial Affairs and former CENUSF Chairman Michael Benson agreed with Schwabacher that the direction of the committee was not what they had hoped for and said he had as much to do with the veto as Schwabacher did.

“It’s not like [Schwabacher] went over my head and pulled the veto,” Benson said.