In a 36-minute meeting last night, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate learned that Office of the Physical Plant (OPP) will not enact their plan to pay student groups to clean up classroom trash.

USG President Galen Foulke said he met with OPP Operations Director Gary Ward yesterday, and they agreed that the focus should be on not having the newspapers there in the first place.

"It's an issue of common decency," Foulke said. "We don't want to just accept that [newspaper trash] is something we have to deal with."

OPP spokesman Paul Ruskin said OPP would prefer to solve the problem at the source instead of allowing the problem to continue.

"We are encouraging the 'We Are' campaign, which is actively publicizing the fact that the litter is a true and expensive problem," Ruskin said.

Students pay OPP maintenance to take care of the trash issue and if the students assume control of the clean-up operation, in effect they would be paying themselves, Ruskin said.

"If we didn't have to use money to clean up classrooms, the money could be used for more important things," Ruskin said. "We might be able to buy new furniture, paint the classrooms and concentrate on fixing them up rather than simply cleaning them."

He added that union consideration was not a factor in the decision.

Pollock/Nittany Sen. Alex Ibrahim said even though OPP has declined their suggestion, the USG Student Services Committee will not drop the idea.

"We are still going to go to [Vice President of Student Affairs] Vicky Triponey and talk to her about what can be done about this," he said.

Ibrahim said the proposal illustrates a "win-win situation."

"Not only are you giving money to students in need of funding, but it's also a way to teach students not to litter," Ibrahim said.

USG Senate also passed legislation to allocate $100 to Rally in the Rotunda to fund their travel expenses to Harrisburg. The rally, which will be held at 1 p.m. on March 15, will enable students to petition their legislators for lower tuition rates and larger state appropriations for the university.