Before there was a chance for further discussion, the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee voted to end the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group budget hearing after an hour of back and forth between members of the ASUO, essentially vetoing OSPIRG’s student funding.
OSPIRG’s initial fate was decided with a vote of 4-1-0 — four in favor of adjourning, and therefore refusing to fund OSPIRG, and one opposed. Because OSPIRG has not had an ACFC contract since 2009, no vote was required, and adjourning the meeting prevented further discussion.
ACFC Chairperson and Sen. Brianna Woodside-Gomez moved to adjourn after saying OSPIRG’s lobbying efforts to regain funding had become distracting to the group’s mission and showed the group did not have widespread student support. She said some OSPIRG petitioners couldn’t tell her what OSPIRG was or what it does for the campus.
“I understand that they are very passionate about this issue,” Woodside-Gomez said. “But I don’t feel that intimidation is the way to gain funding for this group.”
Rousseau said OSPIRG will most likely appeal to the full Senate because the budget hearing was inadequate, allowing only an hour for presentation and no public discussion.
“We were being chided for not having enough student involvement, and then the committee turned around and told us we had too many students who support it,” Rousseau said.
It takes a two-thirds Senate vote to require another ACFC hearing, and a majority vote to overturn ACFC’s budget recommendation. OSPIRG will have 14 days to appeal the decision directly to the ACFC.
ASUO Executive Chief of Staff Ben Eckstein provided the Executive’s recommendation: full $117,000 funding for OSPIRG. ACFC Executive appointee Clark Kissiah was the only ACFC member to vote in opposition.
ASUO Sen. Evan Thomas said the issue with funding OSPIRG with student fees comes down to accountability of OSPIRG’s members to its constituency. Having a mandatory fee for a public organization does not ensure that individuals have a say about what the organization does with that money.
“The argument about OSPIRG isn’t about content,” Thomas said. “What this is about is the funding rubric. The idea of having a mandatory fee for a public interest group is hypocritical.”
OSPIRG statewide Board Chairperson Charles Denson responded to the opening question of how OSPIRG enriches the University by saying the organization is a student-directed and student-funded group that works to solve problems through public service.
Denson said OSPIRG has involved at least 100 students throughout this and last term as volunteers and board members.
The state student PIRG’s board of directors is composed completely of students, but the organization does hire professionals — including advocates, a campus organizer, an organizing director and an executive director — to help students advocate for important issues.
“There are actually a lot of PIRGs that are funded with mandatory fees on college campuses,” Denson said. “The thing that makes this unique and different than any other organization, is that it’s student-directed with an all-student (board of directors) elected by students in the chapter. They have complete control over the direction of the organization.”
Sen. Kaitlyn Lange said the general student population was not in favor of OSPIRG being funded.
“Students hands down would rather have a tangible result on our campus that students can feel every day,” Lange said.
OSPIRG State Treasurer and University student Katie Taylor said OSPIRG’s campaigns make a tangible difference, particularly with OSPIRG health care advocate Laura Etherton’s research being used by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.
Sen. Zachary Stark-MacMillan said he supported OSPIRG because of the empowerment it gives students to make a difference on issues of their choosing.
“That’s not something you get from many other organizations where students say, ‘We want to work on this,’” Stark-MacMillan said. “To have something like that where we decide where the money goes is a powerful thing.”
ACFC’s decision comes after more than a year’s worth of effort by OSPIRG student organizers to regain ASUO funding and have a solidified presence on campus.
A ballot measure in last year’s ASUO election asked students if the ASUO should “fund OSPIRG at a level that allows OSPIRG to hire professional staff to advocate on behalf of students locally, statewide and nationally in places like the State Legislature and Congress.” Although 51 percent of those students who voted said “yes,” ASUO ballot measures do not result in action because they are merely channels through which to voice student desires.
In 2009, then-ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz revoked OSPIRG’s funding because of concern about the use of student incidental fee money to pay professional staff salaries.
Southern Oregon University and Lane Community College are the only other two Oregon universities with permanent funding for OSPIRG. The University would have provided the largest source of funding for the student and state PIRGs and would have six board members, giving it majority control of the board.
If ACFC and the full Senate do not vote to fund OSPIRG, it will essentially mean the end of OSPIRG on the University campus because the state PIRG will stop financing its campus organizer after this year.
“The Executive is prepared to veto a budget that does not include OSPIRG,” Rousseau said.
[email protected]