Student government leaders are preparing for a special election at the start of winter term that will allow for a major overhaul of the allocation of incidental fees.
Votes will be cast online via DuckWeb during the second or third week of winter term, according to ASUO President Emily McLain. She is currently scheduling talks with Oregon Hall, which controls the ASUO’s access to DuckWeb.
The budget reforms McLain and Senate President Athan Papailiou presented to University administration at the end of October need to be voted on by the student body because they would change language in the ASUO Constitution and the Clark Document, which allows student government to collect and distribute the incidental fee.
“Reforming how the incidental fee is allocated is a historical moment for the ASUO as it has not been done in over 15 years,” Papailiou said.
The plan under consideration would change from three to four committees which distribute funds. The EMU Board would stay intact, while the Programs Finance Committee would be given a smaller workload, and the Athletic Department Finance Committee would become the Athletics and Contracted Services Finance Committee.
Contracted services include the Emerald and Lane Transit District.
A separate Departments Finance Committee would be established to focus on large departments such as the Career Center and Oregon Marching Band.
McLain said the changes are “overdue because the incidental fee budget has grown and also changed but the process by which the budget is made has not grown or changed to accommodate that.”
She said the current system “pits large departments and contracted services against student groups within the Programs Finance Committee. That’s a problem because of the time and resources student government has.”
Under the new system, departments would have more time and more meetings with the committee responsible for setting their budgets. And programs, or student groups, would no longer have to compete for pennies with departments that have six-figure budgets.
By allowing the PFC to focus solely on funding student groups, “the name will actually reflect the truth now,” McLain said.
Jennifer Lleras, McLain’s chief of staff, said “I think really what it does is it makes things more transparent for students.”
McLain and Papailiou agreed that the reforms will continue allowing students to have control over how the incidental fee is spent. McLain said the Student Recreation Center no longer being funded by the incidental fee could be a sign of things to come if student leaders aren’t proactive in showing they can effectively and efficiently use student dollars.
While Papailiou wouldn’t name any specific threats to student control over student dollars, he said any loss of oversight could “jeopardize our position in the state legislature.”
If the changes are passed by student vote, they would have to be reviewed by the Constitution Court. An additional academic Senate seat would have to be created, and the court would determine the constituency that senator would represent. McLain and Papailiou both said they don’t foresee any problems from the court.
“I’m really excited the ASUO is moving forward with tangible change,” McLain said. “Zero movement happened last year on budget reform outside of discussion.” She added there has been great collaboration between the Executive and Senate this year.
Papailiou disagreed with McLain’s assertion that no movement occurred in the 2006-07 Senate.
“I believe some of the most challenging parts of this reform took place last year,” he said. He credited former Senate President Sara Hamilton, who ran against McLain with Papailiou as her vice-presidential running mate, with identifying the problem and starting to build consensus in the last school year. Papailiou said he brought his first reform proposal to the Senate in February.
“Where we’re at now isn’t too far away from where the initial proposal started,” he said. The idea was always to provide more oversight of the incidental fee and give students more control, he said. “The general idea of evening the workload among committees remains the same.”
“This year the focus was identifying the solution, but we wouldn’t have been able to do that without senators putting themselves on the line last year.”
[email protected]