OSPIRG was given a small increase in its budget for the 2008-09 school year Friday after the longest hearing with the largest turnout the Programs Finance Committee has had this year.
After more than three hours of testimony, a majority of PFC members led by Sen. Steven Wilsey concluded they did not have any coherent argument for cutting OSPIRG’s funding. Wilsey and committee Chairman Jacob Brennan both expressed skepticism about the contracted service before the hearing and planned to scrutinize the group’s funding.
But in the end, only Sen. Nick Meyers voted against the 2.89 percent increase, giving OSPIRG a budget of $117,244 for next year. Even Brennan, in his second vote as chairman, voted for the ASUO Executive’s recommendation.

OSPIRG’s contract

OSPIRG has come under fire recently at Portland State University, where student government leaders are trying to take away the group’s funding because most of its money is spent on professional activists off campus, disqualifying it as a student group.
Here OSPIRG is not a student group. Instead it has a contract with the ASUO Executive to provide its services.
The PFC has no formal role in negotiating contracts. The committee allocates money for contracts after the Executive has negotiated them. Still, the committee spent more time asking questions they had not asked of any other contracted service this year.

OSPIRG’s presentation

OSPIRG filled the room with at least 40 student activists. Jesse Hough, co-chair of the University’s OSPIRG chapter, presented the group’s recent accomplishments.
He said OSPIRG had reached one-quarter of the student body this year through 70 classroom appearances where 1,200 students had expressed interest in joining a campaign. He said OSPIRG had 20 media hits in the Emerald and Eugene Weekly since the beginning of fall term.
He said the group had worked to get fair trade coffee on the menu in the EMU.
Three hundred disposable cups were exchanged for reusable cups in front of the EMU, 200 light bulbs were exchanged for more environmentally friendly ones, hundreds of pounds of food and $77 were collected for the homeless, he and other volunteers said.
Then there were national campaigns to lower textbook prices and expand Pell grants that OSPIRG also worked on.

PFC concerns

After OSPIRG’s presentation, the PFC had its turn to speak.
“As you may know, some of the concerns a lot of people have is where the funding is being spent on campus,” Sen. Diego Hernandez said. “Why isn’t the incidental fee going to campus and enhancing the cultural development of campus?”
Hough said that was what OSPIRG was trying to do with events about homelessness and light bulb exchanges.
Hernandez pressed harder about how OSPIRG directly benefits students. Hough told him that all of the initiatives OSPIRG works on affect the lives of all students, like lower textbook prices.
“A lot of groups worked on that nationally and here in coalition,” Hernandez said. “I just want to be clear why our incidental fee money is paying staff instead of coming to campus.”
Wilsey said he agreed that OSPIRG’s stated goals and accomplishments would benefit campus.
“The question is does the UO campus as a whole get back $114,000?” he asked of OSPIRG’s 2006-07 budget. “A lot of these initiatives and things you’ve said have been worked on for four or five years, and at that point you’re talking about a million dollars. And does that much come back here?”
It was difficult to identify every OSPIRG volunteer in a room where every chair was filled, and the entire floor was occupied by cross-legged students. Even Brennan’s list of waiting speakers had only descriptions of hoodies and hats and dreadlocks.
But one volunteer shot back at Wilsey, “I think you’re right that it is very difficult to quantify something like OSPIRG. OSPIRG gives me hope that I can change the world. We are educating young people who will enter the workforce to believe that they can change the world.”
“I agree with you,” Wilsey replied, “but this body has to quantify it.”
He said that in 2004 he saw OSPIRG all over campus but their presence had since been in “steady decline.” Jennifer Lleras, chief-of-staff to ASUO President Emily McLain, later pointed out that political organizing would have been easier in a presidential election year when activism is “sexy.”

Visibility on campus

OSPIRG’s visibility on campus became a hotly contested issue of the hearing. Volunteers said they e-mailed every new professor asking if volunteers could make a pitch to their classes.
Volunteers said they had limited access to classrooms. Professors of social sciences and courses dealing with environmental issues are generally friendlier than those teaching business courses, they said.
Still, Wilsey said he hadn’t seen OSPIRG “at all” on campus, and committee member Mei Li Yu said she had never heard of OSPIRG before last week. Committee member Tri Vo said he “had no idea of OSPIRG.”
Sen. Lauren Zavrel chided the committee later: “Obviously, even though your office is right across the hall from our office, apparently we don’t see the big OSPIRG sign.”
Zavrel said that before she was a senator, she didn’t know about the Senate or the PFC.
Hernandez, who usually advocates giving student groups more money than they ask for, continued to question the group on the PSU issue.
If one of the five OSPIRG chapters was defunded but UO’s got the same money as last year, he asked, wouldn’t the University wind up with fewer services for the same amount of money?
Hough called the problems at PSU “unfortunate and kind of shady,” and said, “it’s completely pending.”
“They froze (our funds) on illegitimate charges… their lawyers are talking to our lawyers, and it’s not over with Portland State.”
Hough argued that in the event of having one less chapter contributing to OSPIRG’s statewide organization, UO students would have even greater control of how paid staff spends their time.
After an hour and a half OSPIRG was told they would have to come back to continue the debate later.
“I don’t think anybody on this body wants to say, ‘defund OSPIRG.’” Meyers said. “There isn’t an ideological bent against you guys.”

Round two

But when nine students came back later that night, the tones of both Wilsey and Meyers had changed.
Wilsey decided to support the increase, saying he heard no clear argument against it.
“I know that there are people in the ASUO who feel … that we can’t really trace OSPIRG,” he said. “If they really cared so much they would have been here tonight. I’m not going to continue to fight for something they’re not here for.”
Volunteers returned prepared with finer-tuned arguments of their importance to campus and ways to quantify their value.
Hough pointed to sections of the University’s mission statement about the cultivation of freedom of thought, civic responsibilities and the value of research.
“This is how we feel we are trying to make Oregon a better place,” he said. “I think it’s hard to give a dollar amount for cleaner air. If you guys think you could come up with a dollar amount for that, then maybe we can work with it.”
The committee spent a good deal of time telling the volunteers that the problem amounted to a lack of public relations, and that they could benefit from having a newsletter telling students of their activities and seek co-sponsorships of events with other groups so their name would be on flyers all over campus.
Meyers questioned why, after so many years, so many people dislike OSPIRG and mentioned negative articles in the Oregon Commentator.
ASUO President McLain, who had attended the entire hearing, interrupted. “I think we are verging very closely on a breach of viewpoint neutrality,” she said, accusing Meyers of questioning “how they are perceived politically.”
Meyers shouted back and McLain y
elled over him, “It is a legal issue, and I think we are very close to the line.”
“My point is OSPIRG is telling us that they are going to great lengths to explain themselves” but still have many detractors, Meyers said.
“I think we are terribly off the point,” ASUO Accountant Lynn Giordano said. “Let’s get back to finances.”
Wilsey said he saw no reason why the committee wouldn’t follow the Executive’s recommended budget, saying the charges against OSPIRG were “ambiguous.”
McLain said she saw no reason either, especially since the committee has a high budget benchmark for the year.
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