Last Thursday, Marquette Student Government saw a presentation from Larry Rickard, director and chief of Public Safety. Rickard said that robberies and vandalism are down around campus. However, batteries and thefts are up.

Vandalism is down from 8 to 3 incidents and theft has increased from 27 to 43 incidents this year. Rickard said the batteries have been non-Marquette affiliated, though DPS officers did respond.

Rickard also said the LIMO transport service has completed 47,000 transports, and the LIMO Express service has completed 11,000 transports this year. Rickard said there is also another  form of early morning transportation, the LIMO Scout, a minivan service that gives students rides at intervals from 3:30-5 a.m, after the other LIMO’s have stopped running. There were 172 students have used this service.

Rickard said that this service is mainly for those who are leaving the library.

“We want to make sure students get home,” Rickard said.

Rickard also went over Marquette’s crisis incident management policy. Rickard said that he is in charge of making the decision to lock down the campus should a threat occur and notifying students of the threat through text messages and email.

Rickard said that they have reformulated the plan to decrease wait time for the Milwaukee Police Department to respond. Rickard said his officers have trained closely with the MPD Special Weapons and Tactics team in active shooter response.

“These things happen quickly. We need to be able to intercede in an active shooter situation,” Rickard said.

Rickard urged the senators and students to sign up for text messaging on CheckMarq.

“Whether there’s a crime spike or not, safety is an important piece of your experience here. We want to keep you safe,” Rickard said. To prevent theft, Rickard urged students not to leave their things unattended and unsecured, especially laptop computers.

MUSG Financial Vice President Brittany Riesenbeck presented on the Fiscal Year 2013 budget. The budget is based off the student activity fees from projected enrollment numbers. The proposed budget for the FY13 year is $469,750 with 30.5% going to Student Organization Funding at $130,700. Riesenbeck said the deadline to apply for funding for events occurring within the first week of the next academic year is April 20. Riesenbeck is a sophomore in the College of Business Administration.

MUSG’s budget this past year was planned at $522,900.