Two of the biggest ASUO-funded contracts were the topic of debate in Wednesday’s Student Senate meeting.
In the first full Senate meeting since the Programs Finance Committee exceeded the 2.5 percent cap on the overall budget increase, senators discussed how the PFC can continue while keeping the incidental fee as low as possible.
PFC Sen. Chii-San SunOwen reminded the Senate that, although it seems early to have surpassed the 2.5 percent increase set by the Senate, “three or four” of the budgets they heard the first two nights represented the biggest portion of the budget.
The PFC process has now moved on from contract services and departments, which take up the biggest portion of the budget, and onto student programs. SunOwen said the PFC will try to get back to the 2.5 percent mark and may have to recall some budgets.
Some senators expressed reservations with the increases given to two of those budgets – those of Lane Transit District and the Student Recreation Center.
Sen. Jacqueline Justice said that while she knows the PFC faced “the most challenging budgets that you will hear this year,” she was concerned that the 11.7 percent increase given to the Student Recreation Center, which included money to add a custodial position, was not a good use of the incidental fee.
Justice said that she frequently sees student employees at the rec center sitting around doing homework and suggested that may not be the most efficient use of money.
“If they’ve been running a deficit, they should find another way to come up with it,” she said.
Sen. Jacob Daniels commended the job the PFC has done, but said that in the business world, an 11 percent budget increase is unrealistic.
“In the Lillis Business Center they have a word for any organization that increases its spending by 11 percent and it’s called bankruptcy,” he said. “They’re going to keep running these deficits and they can say, ‘We’re going to cut the times this is open, we’re going to harm students and we’re going to pin it on you.’”
SunOwen told the Senate that the presentation given to the PFC by Dennis Munroe and the other rec center directors broke down the budget (and its problems) in extensive detail.
The increase was “not a huge chunk of money” because it goes to things students have requested, she said.
“I encourage every member to go talk to Dennis. It’s a little easier to understand once you have this information in front of you,” she said.
SunOwen also defended the PFC’s decision to add a custodial position, saying the presentation convinced them that cleanliness is an issue.
Senators also discussed the 7.7 percent increase in the contract with LTD. Although the ASUO already pays less for student tickets than other groups do, some senators worried that the number of students who use the bus might not be high enough to warrant spending so much.
SunOwen said the worry is that because the ASUO has a contract with LTD, any refusal to conform to a rise in prices could lead to LTD taking away the student bus passes.
Sen. Jennifer Lleras, who was at LTD’s budget hearing, pointed out that LTD gives the University a good deal – students only pay around $12 per month for a service that costs the average person $36 and the extra bus route out to the Ducks Village/University Commons area was added without charge to the University.
SunOwen said that while the LTD representative did have old data on how many students ride the bus and how often, the company has not done surveys on student use in a while.
Several senators expressed the desire to see current data.
“We’re valued customers,” Daniels said. “The least they can do is tell us what we’re getting for our money. Many Senators suggested switching to a system of purchasing far fewer passes and handing them out on a first-come, first-served basis to the students who would really use them.
Not all senators believed LTD will cut services if the ASUO attempts to renegotiate its contract.
“Are they really going to turn their back on the University of Oregon – their biggest customer – and face a media frenzy when they tell students they can’t ride the bus anymore?” Daniels said.
about the pfc:
The Programs Finance Committee, or PFC, allocates money to the student programs, contracted services and departments that are funded through the student incidental fee, which is currently set at $202 per person. The larger the PFC’s total annual budget, the higher the incidental fee.
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