The ASUO Senate is scheduled to consider a pay raise for its members next week — for the third time in a month — after a presentation from the Stipend Model Committee last week left senators feeling confused and dissatisfied.
“I’m not the only one confused here right now,” Sen. Kaitlyn Lange said during the debate last week. “There’s three people giving me different answers; that should not be happening in a pay discussion.”
The Senate voted for a number of increases, but the increases lack clarity, and the large number of abstentions for each of the votes prompted the body to stop in its tracks, rescinding all the decisions it had made that night on the matter. The committee was asked to go over things again and report back at the last meeting of the term.
One concern was that members of the four various finance committees who were on these committees by virtue of their Senate seats were paid the same for their committee work as their at-large and appointed colleagues.
“When I am at an EMU board meeting, I want to know that I am getting equal pay as my peers,” Lange said last week.
Those concerns were reiterated during the Stipend Model Committee meeting this week.
There was the additional question at this week’s meeting of how many months members of the various finance committee should be paid for. Unlike the Senate, which meets almost every week of every term, the finance committees’ workloads vary throughout the year.
For example, the Programs Finance Committee has few responsibilities once their budget is passed at the end of winter term, but during that term often meets for five to eight hours at a time.
The Stipend Model Committee took this into account when deciding on a new proposal for PFC stipends. Under the plan to be presented at next week’s Senate meeting, PFC members will make $250 per month for six months.
This is opposed to the proposed $175 per month for members of the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, Department Finance Committee and EMU Board. EMU Board and ACFC members will make this amount for nine months; DFC will get six months of stipend.
Senators will be making $150 per month for nine months under the new arrangement. This amount was referred to as a “base pay” for senators; senators on these four finance committees will also be paid their committee stipends, while academic senators will receive an additional $100 per month for their additional duties. These separate payments are a continuation of how the stipend system is currently structured — except for the academic payments — and abandons an earlier plan to unite finance committee and Senate stipends into one payment, spread out evenly over the year.
The Stipend Model Committee realized that the significant increase in PFC stipends may be hard to stand for senators.
“The concern is that it won’t go over very well in Senate,” Sen. Lamar Wise said.
The process was frustrating for one of those involved.
“I don’t know why senators who have such big problems with it don’t come to our meetings,” Sen. Molly Bacon said.
Committee tries again on student stipend model
Daily Emerald
November 20, 2011
0
More to Discover