Marquette Student Government unanimously passed two bills Thursday to clarify funding requirements for service projects and to recommend that the university budget include the Upass city bus program despite an impending fee increase.

The Senate brought the revised "Clarifying Charitable Contributions" amendment back to the table after MUSG President Alex Hermanny vetoed it in September.

"The problem before was that it left too many ambiguities and loopholes," said Hermanny, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. "Now everything is laid out in a way that is very equitable."

The amendment gives student organizations the right to request Student Organization Allocation funding for service projects but restricts the use of the money to things like food and transportation. It prohibits the use of funds for permanent goods, to offset fundraisers or to make direct donations to national organizations, said MUSG President Pro Tempore Brock Banks, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.

"We need to make sure student organizations have access to their own money," said Banks, who sponsored the bill.

He said the problematic funding requests have been a recurring issue, the most recent of which concerned Global Medical Relief this past spring.

Banks said the legislation took several months to return to a vote because the authors continually had to revise the definition of a "charitable contribution" until it was clear enough for organizations to readily understand in order to best access SOA funds.

The amendment to the financial policies now defines a charitable contribution as "any donation of monetary funds to a person or an organization."

"It's been a long process, and I think we finally came to some resolution and put forth a clear definition so we don't have those problems," he said.

The Senate also passed a formal recommendation to the University Budget Committee that the Upass program remain at Marquette regardless of a potential fee increase of $3 to $6, which has yet to be determined by the Milwaukee County Board.

MUSG administered a survey that drew 443 responses from students from all four classes, 71.33 percent of whom said the university should not discontinue the Upass program if the increase is implemented, according to Communications Vice President Laura Herzing, a senior in the College of Communication.

Banks said the Upass is "an all-or-nothing program" that is not on a sign-up basis and provides a pass to every student if the university participates at all.

The survey provided "overwhelming evidence" that if Marquette were to drop the Upass program, "there would be a lot of unhappy students," said bill author Kevin Gandy, senator for McCormick Hall and a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences.

The recommendation is only for the university to keep the Upass and does not concern the county's reasons for raising its price, which include County Executive Scott Walker's reluctance to raise property taxes, Gandy said.

Also at the meeting, Herzing said MUSG will release a report for undergraduates on how their mandatory student activity fee is spent, which will include a list of events that the fee has funded this semester.

Free-lancer Jackie Dillon contributed reporting to this article.