David Foxx ran with a wide range of platform promises.
He said his main focus thus far though has been the appropriations process and making sure Student Government returns to a fiscally-sound state after some budgetary mismanagement, leaving SG in about $8,675 worth of debt this summer.
According to Foxx, he has helped shorten the appropriations process by one month for students requesting money for their organizations.
“We are working on getting appropriations checks out as fast as possible,” he said.
In his platform, Foxx said he wanted to be the number-one resource for student groups when it comes to fundraising, publicity and starting bank accounts.
“One of the biggest things under appropriations is an open door policy,” he said.
Foxx said during this process, students had to have several items, including bank accounts and knowing their tax ID numbers, and he said he and other senators were able to point those who did not have what they needed in the right direction.
He did say, however, that students have not come to ask for help with such issues unless they were applying for appropriations.
Sean Brown, a sophomore in communication, said his group, Acappology, applied for appropriations and received $2,000 of the $4,500 his group requested.
“It’s a really tough job for [the Appropriations Committee],” Brown said. “They did a good job overall. There are a lot of divisions between Greek Life and the rest of campus that ran through appropriations too. It must have been difficult.”
According to Brown, though he knows who the student body treasurer is, he doesn’t think the treasurer would be the first person he would go to when he needed help with financial issues.
“Generally, we don’t feel like we get the support from the University we need …. For our particular case, it’s a pretty rough road. For help with fundraising and that type of thing, the student body treasurer would probably be pretty low on the list [of people we contact],” he said.
Foxx said he believes the senators did an effective job during appropriations helping student groups during their office hours.
Although Brown said his group did not take advantage of that, Acappology’s sponsoring senator was a big help.
An online grading system for groups to rate their senators during appropriations is in the works, according to Foxx. Though it was not ready for the fall semester, he said he hopes to have it up and running in time for spring appropriations.
Two other platform promises Foxx ran on were starting a Web development branch to build Web sites for student groups, and getting student discounts at restaurants like Bojangle’s. But no progress has been made on those issues.
Another platform issue Foxx has yet to accomplish is hosting benefit concerts on campus, something Student Government did his freshman year, he said.
“Until the appropriations cycle is done, we’re not going to be focused on anything else,” he said.
The final issue Foxx had in his platform was fighting for “issues students care about” like tuition and fees, tailgating, dead week and textbooks.
“Intrinsically, we always want to fight these issues,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to draft specific legislation. As a student leader, I’m always going to fight for those issues.”
Foxx said though he has not done anything individually for these issues, he has had the same stance as the student body.
“As a student leader, you always have a stance that tuition and fees should be kept as low as possible … Student Government as a whole is doing a good job with that,” he said.
Although UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor recommended a 0 percent increase, Foxx said despite SG’s advocacy, this University will not achieve that.
Foxx said he was more concerned this semester with taking care of Student Government’s financial situation.
As for tailgating, Foxx said the way he helped students fightfor extended tailgating time was influencing the Senate Finance Committee to approve a request from Student Body President Bobby Mills appropriating money to the Wolfpack In the House program’s camera purchases — used to take photos at the games. He added that he did not advocate for extended tailgating time.
He did not, however, advocate for extended tailgating time this year.
“My office and the finance committee want to keep tailgating open and continue without being shortened,” he said.
Scott Lassiter, a senator and Foxx’s opponent in last year’s election, said he supports Foxx’s endeavors, though Lassiter said there can be improvements as with everything.
“He may have been able to do a better job of putting himself out there, but he had a lot on his plate,” he said.
According to Lassiter, more can always be done in terms of publicity.
Although Lassiter said Foxx helped him a lot with the Senate Tuition and Fees Committee, which Lassiter chairs, Foxx could do a better job of being vocal about student issues.
“We really haven’t seen that much from Dave, but we know he stands with us,” Lassiter said.