The Veterans and Family Student Association has not been around for a long time, but the group’s presence on campus is evident and its service invaluable, members of the Programs Finance Committee have said.
Unfortunately for the VFSA, the ASUO recognized the group just last year and next year it would receive $300 for its first budget.
“It would cripple us to have a budget of $300,” VFSA Co-director Shane Addis said. “It would take us 10 years to get a thousand.”

The group has raised more than $1,300 since last winter and has a growing membership of returning veterans that Addis expects will only continue to increase in the coming years.
It takes two years for any new group to receive funding, and the committee’s budget model doesn’t offer leeway for a support group for veterans returning to school. PFC members have cited both of those facts as reasons to recall certain groups to give them more funds.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the PFC had a list of eight groups to consider giving extra money at the end of the budget season.
All of the groups have already received a budget; most have received money to grow on top of maintaining the services they currently provide.
“Just because something’s new doesn’t mean it should get low funding,” Sen. Steven Wilsey said. He wasn’t speaking specifically of the VFSA, but most committee members have made clear that they value the group and consider it a high priority.
“VFSA is most likely our priority on funding,” Sen. Diego Hernandez said. “This is going to bring a lot of services to campus, as well as good support for students.”
Addis worries about waiting to be recalled. The committee cannot promise the group will get any more money than it already has. And even if they do get more, no one knows how much it will be.
“The recall list does not guarantee anyone what they’re requesting,” Wilsey said.
The PFC’s model had anticipated that maintaining current services for all contracts, departments and services would increase the budget $176,000. On top of that, about $22,000 was reserved to allow programs – especially small student groups – to grow. At the start of the budget season Wilsey predicted $42,000 would be left for groups with special circumstances, like the VFSA.
But that number is already shrinking. Maintaining current services will cost at least $10,000 more than expected because of increases in operating costs and because PFC has opted to fix previous mistakes, such as increasing a salary that had been stagnant for years.
Now Wilsey hopes to have $25,000 for groups with special circumstances. Since more than half of the budget hearings have been completed, he said he hopes there will be no more than 15 or 16 groups waiting to be recalled.
“How important is this to campus?” Wilsey said he will ask of the groups. “How does this affect the cultural and physical development of campus? And then we start to make judgments based on this.”
Certainly some of those judgments may not be popular or easy, but Wilsey doesn’t seemed to be concerned.
“We’re already making some fine judgment calls now, based on who’s going to be on the recall list,” he said. The first consideration is if a group has a circumstance that breaks the model, such as the VFSA, which has done a lot of fundraising and events that can’t be taken into consideration for a new group.
More established groups are judged on their fundraising, how much money they’ve spent, and how many students benefit from their services.
Another reason for adding a group to the recall list is if it needs more money to maintain current services than the model allows. Such was the case for KD Magazine.
“Publications already have higher operating costs than other programming,” Wilsey, a journalism major, said. “They have already established themselves as a publication on campus and have done very well.”
Another consideration would be to give more money to certain parts of a budget that are small but, in the committee’s judgment, have value. MEChA was added to the list Monday because of a high school mentoring program that is currently funded at $232. The group requested $1,200 to fund the program.
Wilsey said the program would definitely enhance the campus.
“A lot of people feel UO doesn’t really try to recruit students of color,” he said. “It’s a real issue.”
Wilsey compared MEChA’s circumstance to one the committee faced earlier the same night from the Korean Student Association. The group’s Korean Culture Night event already had a budget of more than $1,800.
Wilsey said that since the event has had a similar budget before and been a success, it probably didn’t need as large an increase.
Discussions about which groups to recall and how to divvy the funds will likely lead to conversations about viewpoint neutrality.
Steven K. Green, a professor of law at Willamette University, published briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court on issues of school funding and viewpoint neutrality.
“Generally speaking, once a group meets the criteria (to be recognized) you cannot make determinations based on the viewpoint of the group,” Green said. Choosing a type of program to fund – such as a need for more student publications – over a viewpoint, such as a certain kind of publication, is an acceptable but gray area, according to Green.
“The criteria for calling them back still needs to be as objective as possible. The justification needs to be somewhat neutral,” he said.
Wilsey said he isn’t worried. After being on the PFC, it’s clear that “ulterior motives are a non-issue,” he said.
“Exceptions will stand out and have to have a legitimate reason, and for every one, I can give a legitimate reason,” he said.
With KD Magazine and Global Talk, another student publication on the list, he offered another comparison.
Recently, the Oregon Commentator’s budget was decreased because of poor spending. But the PFC didn’t cut as much as the ASUO Executive would have, and the conversation never ventured away from finances to politics.
“The Commentator writes bad things about me. It was a civil discussion and I don’t think there was any political motive there at all,” Wilsey said.
The PFC will meet publicly to decide how to divvy the funds for recalled groups, though the format for doing so has not yet been decided.
Sen. Hernandez said the recall process is still better than in other years, when groups either faced budget cuts or the PFC decided on the spot which groups to increase without keeping a tally of how much was being spent.
Addis said he thinks the committee understands the VFSA’s need. “I’m hoping for the best,” he said.
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“Allocating veterans’ budget postponed for two weeks” 01/14/2008