You’ve got to admire ASUO president Adam Walsh’s efforts to keep our student fee money from being wasted. In the end, though, any such efforts will be fruitless. Walsh is like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke (no double entendre intended – well, sort of); he can’t fix the problem, he can only delay the inevitable.
Every year around this time, various groups of our fellow students get together and decide how to spend the mandatory incidental fees we pay every term. The rules that govern these decisions require that the money be spent in such a way that it directly benefits University students.
Enter OSPIRG. Those political panhandlers on 13th Avenue who hold clipboards and tell you that you can help save the elusive spotted whatever by listening to their pitch are working for OSPIRG.
Certainly it’s debatable whether having yet more people asking us for things while we walk to and from classes constitutes a benefit to students. But at least this “service” impacts us. Much of what OSPIRG does with our money does not directly impact University students.
You see, OSPIRG puts the money we give into a giant pool with all the money it gets from other universities and colleges throughout the state. Then, a group of folks in Portland decide how and where that money will be spent.
These people are not accountable to any branch of the ASUO. The students effectively give up control over how more than $100,000 of their money is spent. Other groups occasionally spend money throughout the state and the country in order to advance their missions at the University. OSPIRG occasionally spends money at the University in order to advance its mission throughout the state and the country.
Because of this, OSPIRG has always been a source of controversy during the funding process. In the past, the ASUO has even gone so far as to defund the group. However, OSPIRG has always proved its resiliency. OSPIRG endures because 1) it’s a powerful special-interest lobbying group affiliated with many other such groups across the country and 2) because the ASUO Senate loves to spend money.
This year, OSPIRG again finds itself in the middle of a funding controversy. However, I predict it will skate through unscathed. In its proposed budget, which the Programs Finance Committee approved, OSPIRG said it planned to create a new staff position that would focus exclusively on recruiting activities at other schools. The group came right out and said it plans to spend our money at other schools. It seems to me that if students at other schools really want to get stopped on their way to class by naÃ