Today and Thursday, University students will have the opportunity to vote on an important amendment to the ASUO Constitution, one that will alter significantly the way in which student funds are allocated.
On the ballot is an opportunity to replace the Athletic Department Finance Committee with two new committees, the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee and the Department Finance Committee. As evidenced by their names, the ACFC would negotiate allocations for contracted services – including the Emerald – and athletics tickets, and the DFC would determine budgets for University departments that receive student fees.
This new process for allocating funds will be a vast improvement over the current model, which systematically shortchanges student groups at the expense of departments and contracts.
The Programs Finance Committee, the body currently in charge of allocating funds to everyone, is given a benchmark every year by the Student Senate. The benchmark determines how much overall allocations can increase. This year it was 5.5 percent, which meant that no group suffered too much, but in other years it has been a different story. Last year the benchmark was only 2.5 percent, a number that resulted in cuts to student groups to make up for required increases in the budgets of contracted services and departments.
Contracted groups, such as Lane Transit District and the Oregon Daily Emerald, provide services to the University in exchange for a share of the incidental fee. Departments are staffed by paid members of the University, but like contracts function mainly to provide students with essential services. Examples of campus departments are the Campus Recycling program, Career Center and Student Rec Center.
Separating these types of organizations out from student groups will allow the Senate to set separate benchmarks for each committee, protecting student groups, which have fewer mandated increases, from budget decreases. Furthermore, the switch will decrease the PFC’s workload, allowing it focus more energy on each group it sees.
These improvements come with one caveat. This shiny new system will work the way it is intended only if it is staffed with competent people. Filling existing student government positions has proven difficult, so creating more seats to fill might only worsen that problem. Nevertheless, making the workload of the committees manageable should make students more willing to commit.
By establishing separate finance committees for student groups, contracts and departments, the entire ASUO will function more smoothly, and with greater transparency. All students who pay the incidental fee are automatically registered to vote. So if you value your student fees, and believe the welfare of students is tied to the vitality of student groups on campus, sign on to DuckWeb today and vote to amend the ASUO Constitution.
An ASUO addition means ADFC’s subtraction
Daily Emerald
April 1, 2008
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