The Student Association Senate voted 13-8-1 not to hold a hearing to censure President Omar Woodard Tuesday night over claims that he illegally paid a member of his administration $3,800 last summer.

Woodard was accused of violating SA governing documents by using student funds to pay chief administrative officer Christian Washington to prepare the SA for the upcoming year last August. Woodard said the funds came from the University and therefore do not fall under SA jurisdiction.

“No SA funds were used, the money came directly from the University,” Woodard said at Tuesday night’s Senate meeting.

He added that the payment, which came from Robert Chernak, senior vice president of Student and Academic Support Services, helped him prepare his administration.

“The SA president cannot get all the work done alone,” Woodard said. “I found non-SA funds to subsidize and pay for some assistance.”

“I’m not going to apologize for that,” he added.

Woodard said he spoke with “appropriate administrators” about the money and made sure it was a “reasonable expenditure.”

“Everything we did was within the bylaws, and we made sure of that,” Woodard said.

Ben Traverse (CCAS-U), who unsuccessfully led the attempt to censure Woodard at the Senate meeting, said the president is still at fault.

“Any money from the University to the SA is considered student funds and the SA bylaws say this money can only go to work-study students,” Traverse said.

After he was unable to force Woodard to pay $3,823 back to the University, Traverse moved unsuccessfully to censure Ryan Kilpatrick (ESIA-U) for “tainting the Senate body with personal politics.” Kilpatrick supported Woodard and his payments to Washington.

Traverse called Kilpatrick “an embarrassment of a student leader.”

“I have the support of the majority of the senate,” Kilpatrick said, referring to the failed majority needed to censure him. “My ‘personal politics’ all stem from me defending my friends when they are under attack.

“Omar did nothing wrong,” Kilpatrick continued. “He gave compelling arguments to support the just allocation of funding to Christian.” Despite Woodard’s accounting for the money, Peter Feldman (U-At-Large) said he still questioned the payment.

“Without a proper paper trail, and against the backdrop of everything that has happened this year, I have a lot of trouble believing that this money was properly obtained, properly accounted for and properly disbursed,” Feldman said.

In October, the Senate found that Woodard spent more than $400 in student funds for an August dinner for his cabinet at an upscale Georgetown restaurant. He later repaid that money.

Ryan DeMerlis (ESIA-U) said both the censure motions were a waste of time.

“We have a lot more pertinent student body issues we could be attending to,” DeMerlis said. “The reason we get a bad rap is because we spend too much time on petty personal politics.”

Woodard said he was “happy” the issue was resolved.

“I would like to hope it’s not personal,” Woodard said. “We’ve never been an administration of secrecy or having anything to hide, we’ve been very thorough and clear.”

Senate Finance Committee Chair Jordyn Cosme said the group will continue to review the expenditure forms Woodard used to pay Washington, and Traverse said more censure motions could be warranted.