AS Elections 2016: Meet Director of Budget Management candidate Vladyslav Verchenko

Nineteen year old business administration major Vladyslav Verchenko is running for the Associated Students Director of Budget Management. Verchenko is president of the Investment Club. He missed the first meeting to go the election debate and had his vice president host instead. If he’s elected, this may be a common course of action.

As Director of Budget Management, he essentially wants to serve as a voice for international students. He said he has already started asking international students about things they wish to be improved on campus.

“I’d kind of have this power to say something,” Verchenko said of the position.

Verchenko was intrigued by his idea of the networking app proposed by Steve Maldonado, who is running for AS president.

“For the new students who come to SMC, they can log into the application and see all the clubs and activities that SMC has,” Verchenko said.

Both Maldonado and Verchenko are a part of the New Wave slate. According to Verchenko, they called the slate New Wave because of the focus on technology. However, he isn't entirely clear as to what the groups unified message is, acknowledging that while they work together, they do have some different ideas.

“Each of us brought some new ideas to our slate, and in general had different ideas what we should do,” Verchenko said. “I’m thinking about doing a foundation of books, like in the library, so students can rent the books for a much cheaper price."

He also noted parking as a major issue, as well as the availability of classes crucial to graduation or transferring.

One of his new budgeting ideas is to not leave any cash paid to the AS to be rolled over to the next semester.

“[Students] don’t want to leave this money for other students,” Verchenko said. “They want to use all the money from the budget. I want to spend all the money. Each semester we should have a new budget. I think students want that.”