creation of SGA bill library indexed by club

As a new senator and jfc member, it seems to me that sga is well run. However, there is one area in particular where I feel improvement could be made with only a small amount of effort. I would be very useful to be able to easily go back and look up when club X last requested funds for, say capital equipment. Or how often club Y comes to us for event money. The amount of money received in a budget is shown on every bill, but it's not easy to look up how much total money each club receives every year from SGA.

Has anyone ever tried to create a library for SGA use, where there is a folder for each club? In each folder, there would be tabs for each year, and within the section for that year, the club's budget and all bills that came before the house and senate (along with whether or not they passed) concerning that club would be stored for easy reference in the future. Such a resource would make it far easier to see, for example, just how old a club's equipment is, without having to blindly take their word for it. It would also enable us to easily check up on promises made, such as an expectation that something would be a one-time expense, but that they keep asking for every few years, or that a piece of equipment would last XX years, or to ensure that a club wasn't paying the same speaker to come back every 2 years.

With turnover so high, and continuity of SGA limited by the nature of the graduation cycle, such a resource would go a long way towards allowing current legislators to ensure fairness and continuity from year to year. It also would not be a lot of work to create and maintain, and would only require a large bookshelf in the SGA office.

thoughts?

Kit (Christopher Neel)
grad student senate