The DASB Senate took a final vote on its 2017-2018 budget and endorsed a proposal to give students universal access to .edu email addresses March 1.

There was one dissenter in the final budget vote: vice president Stephanie Rigsby, who expressed her gratitude for the senators who worked on finalizing the budget, but said she did not agree with the decision to fund the Office of College Life’s staff.

“I won’t be supporting it because I don’t think we should be giving to classified staff,” Rigsby said.

The senators also endorsed a proposal by Neil McClintick, 20, political science major, to provide students with universal access to .edu email addresses. McClintick explained some of the benefits of having a .edu email address.

“[It provides] Spotify Premium – you get a huge discount, Prezi premium, free Microsoft Office, a Amazon Prime account, free New York Times, free Wall Street Journal, free anti-virus software,” McClintick said. “Another big thing is that you get a more professional domain. Your school identity on there is actually very professional.”

McClintick said he spoke with college administration about the issue, but admin expressed concerns to him about lack of student demand and actual usage if implemented. He presented a survey conducted by the college in 2014 that reported 40 percent of students would check their .edu email multiple times a day, and 80 percent would like to have such an email address.

Student Trustee Elias Kamal commented that the Foothill student government president was also pursuing this idea and offered to help with making a connection.

After receiving a unanimous endorsement from the DASB Senate, McClintick said he will be starting a petition to demonstrate current student support, and begin talking with Foothill about working together.

The DASB Senate also approved spending $2,092 on the FACCC Advocacy and Policy Conference after discussing the additional parking fees in the request that changed after the finance committee’s approval.

“I think we should approve it,” senator Dara Streit said. “I know last year they took way more people and took significantly more for parking, so that they’re taking fewer people and being more conscientious of our budget … this is something that De Anza consistently goes to every year and takes students to go to.”