Groups asking for money from the Student Senate surplus account were 0 to 3 Wednesday night as the Senate denied funding requests from Rec Sports, the ASUO Constitution Court and the Oregon Daily Emerald.
Of the $243,358 in the surplus at the start of the year, about $23,400 has been allocated.
Brent Harrison, associate director of Rec Sports, requested $5,655 to cover the wages of student officials for spring term sports. Harrison said last year’s Programs Finance Committee, which allocated $164,880 for Rec Sports’ 06-07 budget, cut student wages and challenged Rec Sports to bring its work force to 35 percent work study students.
Officiating jobs are not the most attractive work study jobs because players argue with officials, Harrison said. Despite the challenge from the PFC, only 15 percent of Rec Sports’ employees have work study awards. The department has increased participation fees in an attempt to raise more revenue, but now Harrison says it needs more money to hire officials for softball and soccer games.
Rec Sports has to have a certain number of officials for each game because of safety concerns for the players involved, especially in contact sports such as football and basketball, Harrison said.
In response to Senators’ questions about what the consequences of not having funding would be, Harrison said the impact would be felt directly by the students who play on teams.
“We’re already running into situations – we’re putting teams on waiting lists and turning them away,” he said. “If we limit that more, we’re going to have more students that are going to be upset.”
Harrison said that almost all of the money he asked for through the PFC process went directly to student wages, but said the money allocated is just not enough, because of the lack of interest from work study students and because work study tends to run out partway through the school year.
Senators still expressed concern over how Rec Sports has spent its money and asked Harrison to come back to the Senate with exact numbers.
Matt Greene, chief justice of the Constitution Court, the body that serves as the judicial arm of the ASUO, came to Senate to request funding to raise stipends for the court’s associate justices from $125 to $150 per month. He said that while the court is really only busy during elections or when grievances are filed against members of the student government, the justices do a lot of work.
“A stipend is not compensation for the hours you put in,” Sen. Chii-San SunOwen said.
Senators also expressed concern that increasing the court’s stipends, which were set at $125 when last year’s ASUO created the current stipend model, would set a precedent allowing other groups whose stipends were set at a specific amount during last year’s budget cycle to come back and ask for an increase.
“I think it poses a dangerous practice and a slippery slope to fund stipends out of surplus,” Sen. Jacob Daniels said.
Daniels told the Senate that University President Dave Frohnmayer previously threatened to veto any stipend that violates the model. The motion failed by a vote of 1-12-4 with only Sen. Nate Gulley voting to approve.
Gulley said Thursday he decided to vote in favor because he thought it was a wise way to spend the incidental fee. “I guess it just came down to the fact it was for student wages, and that’s kind of the crux for the (incidental) fee,” he said.
The final surplus request of the night came from the Emerald, which asked for $8,598 to purchase equipment to expand its video production positions and add more multi-media elements to the paper’s Web site.
After a lengthy debate over whether the surplus should be used to purchase equipment for contracted services, the senate voted to not fund the request. The Senate voted on a bill outlining penalties for senators who do not attend the required number of budget hearings. Senators are required to attend 10 PFC hearings, three EMU budget hearings and one Athletic Department Finance Committee budget negotiation. They also discussed the possibility of holding a campus bone marrow drive.
Contact the campus and federal politics reporter at [email protected]