The Associated Students of Colorado State University held a special session Wednesday night due to the ASCSU presidential debate that occurred in the Lory Student Theater earlier in the evening.

The senate body adopted Bill #4618, which would change the payroll budget cap for the next presidential administration for ASCSU due to removing the Transfort contract and salary increases across campus in Article III Section 302.

The Internal Committee made no changes to the bill.

Vice President Mike Lensky, who authored the bill with President Daniela Pineda-Soracá, explained the bill would increase the pay wage across all branches of ASCSU to stay more competitive with the rising minimum wage.

“ASCSU, you do it for the student services and all that, but you still have to make a decent amount of money for your services,” Lensky said. “(If) I’m the director of marketing and ASCSU is paying me $5 an hour (whereas) someone else is paying $12 an hour, and that’s the minimum wage, ASCSU can’t really stay competitive.”

The bill would allocate 22 percent of budgeted expenditures to salaries for members of ASCSU. Lensky said the salary increase would not impair ASCSU’s ability to operate.

“If someone goes to that 22 percent, the 78 percent will still be able to do everything ASCSU wants to do,” Lensky said. “No programs should be cut. We can still operate at the same level, even with that salary increase.”

The bill unaninmously passed in the senate body with a vote of 21-0-0 and will be voted on again at the next senate meeting.

As candidates for the 47th presidential administration of ASCSU conclude their final week of campaigning, Senator Lawrence Horowitz urged other senators to remind their friends to vote.

“Voting is really important,” Horowitz said. “Last year, we only had 12 percent of the student body vote as well as the election was won by 22 votes. Tell (people) that their votes do actually matter. This isn’t like an electoral college kind of system.”

Students can vote for presidential candidates and speaker of the senate candidates on RamWeb from April 3rd to April 5th at 4 p.m.

Collegian reporter Haley Candelario can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @H_Candelario98.