For the first time in history, student groups can fund workers through the work study program instead of using stipends they receive from the ASUO.
Groups have asked the ASUO Student Senate to make the switch for some of their positions, but the practice may not continue for long.
As soon as the senate assumed responsibility for the transfers from the Executive this year, problems bubbled to the surface. A group sponsoring a work study student must pay the federal government back 3 percent of a student’s earnings at the end of the year.
The senate decided that groups must have the 3 percent available in other parts of its budget before a stipend is changed to a work study.
Working in the ASUO, students sometimes have to spend money — for example, the price of a dinner eaten while on the job. To help defer incidental costs such as this, the ASUO provides students with stipends.
However, some students eligible for work study salaries have claimed the stipend is not enough to cover the time commitment of their positions. They want to able to use their stipends for work study — in which the federal government provides 75 percent of work study pay while the stipend provides the other 25 percent — allowing them to earn up to four times as much money, EMU Director of Student Activities Gregg Lobisser said. Previously, groups just took the 3 percent from other places in their budget, which sometimes put the group into a deficit. ASUO Accounting Coordinator Jennifer Creighton-Neiwert said money was taken from the general surplus to cover the loss.
The surplus is a general pool of money not used by student groups at the end of the year.
Although groups will now spend more money covering the cost, there should be no impact on the incidental fee, Senate President Peter Watts said. There is often money left over in groups’ leadership accounts, where stipend funds are held, which means there is often enough to cover the 3 percent kickback.
But resolving the kickback dilemma was only the beginning of a significant probe into the transfer of stipends into work study.
“I didn’t understand the underlying issues,” Watts said, such as whether it is fair for one student who is doing the same job as another to earn more pay through work study.
It also may be illegal to change positions back and forth between work study and the stipend.
Should that be the case, Watts said, “it would preclude anyone who didn’t have work study from running for the position.”
Monitoring the number of hours students work per week also poses a significant problem.
Sen. Mary Elizabeth Madden, chair of the Programs Finance Committee, said that, in the past, “there wasn’t any control” of the number of hours students logged onto their timecards after the change.
The senate may or may not have that control in the future.
“There’s really no way we can,” Madden said. “Legally, if they turn in a timecard for more [hours], we have to pay them.”
More broadly, the stipend system as a whole may be in question.
Watts said that stipends “can’t be connected in any way with the hours” a student works. When the senate changes stipends to work study, which revolves around hourly wages, the work study students receive pay for things such as office hours. Stipend students don’t get paid for holding office hours, and some people, like senators, are required to hold posted office hours.
It is unclear whether the two can be placed on the same level — whether some students can work based on hourly rates while others simply receive a flat sum each month.
If the senate’s investigation finds that the stipend system is invalid, Lobisser said, the ASUO can do one of two things: It can eliminate stipends altogether and make programs positions be volunteer positions, or it can convert them all into paid hourly jobs. Either way, there would be an impact.
Creating a volunteer-only system may prevent some students from participating because they cannot afford to spend the time without compensation, Lobisser said. Making all jobs paid hourly would have an enormous effect on the incidental fee, he added.
For now, the senate continues to take work study transfer requests on a case-by-case basis. Watts said that, despite the questionable legality of the process, the senate will continue until the administration tells them to stop.
“In fact, they’ve told us to proceed with caution,” he said.
Students who want to convert their stipends into work study pay must sit down with a senator and plow through a stipend-to-work study conversion worksheet.
The senate will form a committee to decide what should be done, either this week or next.