The Student Association of the State University of New York met for their semi-annual conference Saturday at the Holiday Inn in Binghamton, where representatives from the Binghamton University SA presented a resolution and a constitutional amendment.

Delegates of student governments from the 64 SUNY campuses attended the conference.

The resolution presented by BU representatives focused on the mid-year budget cuts and tuition increases that are affecting the SUNY system.

Earlier this month, New York Gov. David Paterson ordered a $500 million cut in current-year spending for state agencies — $90 million of which will be cut directly from the State University of New York system.

Last year, Research and Planning Committee Chair Lawrence Faulstich issued a petition drive, protesting the fact that SUNY wasn’t completely benefiting from the $310 tuition increase for in-state students that was put into effect last semester.

At this year’s conference, the year-long effort was once again brought to the floor.

Saturday’s resolution, which was passed, asks each school to collect a minimum of 1,000 signatures on individual petitions protesting the budget cuts’ drastic impact on SUNY. It also references the fact that a large portion of the tuition increase is not going back to the schools, but being used to close the state deficit in non-SUNY departments.

“We [BU] would be hit pretty hard because the cuts are proportional, and we are one of the largest universities in the state system,” BU Assembly chair Elahd Bar-Shai said.

The petitions are to be sent from each school to the Research and Planning Committee at BU by Dec. 1.

In addition, a constitutional amendment referring to a complete overhaul of the SUNY SA constitution, which was submitted last year but not brought to the floor, was resubmitted.

According to Bar-Shai, last spring the SUNY SA asked some of its constituents, including BU, to make efficiency modifications to their constitution.

Faulstich and the rest of the Research and Planning Committee spent a month reviewing the constitution and submitted the proposed changes to BU’s Student Assembly. The changes were approved, and submitted to the SUNY SA to be voted on.

At Saturday’s conference, BU put up these changes for a vote.

The changes were brought up not to be approved, but to remind the SUNY SA that this initiative should still be considered, Bar-shai said.

The changes were not voted on since a motion was made to redirect them to the SUNY SA Rules Committee for first vote. If the changes pass in the Rules Committee, SUNY SA will vote as a whole at the spring conference.

“We succeeded in getting their wheels turning on this process,” Bar-Shai said. “We wanted to remind the SUNY SA that we thought this was important and need to be looked at,” he added.

The BU Assembly also voted on, and passed, a resolution at their weekly meeting Monday night.

This proposal requested for SA President Adam Amit to push administration to extend the hours of Health Services for both nights and weekends, and possibly shift their hours of operation to start one hour later.

According to Bar-Shai, walk-ins in the morning and appointments in the afternoon do not necessarily fit in with students’ schedules.

Bar-Shai also noted that although there are clinics in the area, these are not plausible options for those that are sick or do not have a car.

A clause was added to the proposal, asking Amit to push administration to provide a free sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening to BU students, removing the $40 charge that currently exists.

As of now the only way to receive free testing is through the Broome County Department of Health on Front Street every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Both the clause and the proposal, titled Yadin Care — written by Yadin Herzel, passed unanimously at Monday’s meeting.