Increased pay for student government and program leaders will be back in the spotlight Wednesday night as the ASUO Senate hears another presentation from the Stipend Model Committee@@is this an unofficial name?@@. The Senate carried the matter over to this week’s meeting after a two-hour discussion yielded no consensus.
Last Wednesday the committee, comprised of executive staff members, senators and program leaders, made its initial presentation to the Senate. They recommended a stipend increase for almost all student government officials, as well as additional program director positions for groups with programming budgets over $1,000.
A number of senators were unhappy with the amount the increase would cost, which was estimated to be around $250,000 on top of the current incidental fee budget. The most the fee can legally grow next year is just less than $923,000.
“I’m not comfortable doing this big increase all at once,” Sen. Laura Hinman@@http://asuo.uoregon.edu/senate.php?a=30@@ said at last week’s meeting. “I think it’s going to affect the PFC’s budget so dramatically, affect the students so dramatically.”
Others were concerned the committee had not considered other forms of reimbursement, such as reduced or free tuition for officials. There was also concern for how changes to the stipend model may alter financial aid awards for those receiving stipends.
Hinman said at last week’s Senate meeting she does not accept her stipends from the Senate and the Programs Finance Committee because of the effect they would have on her financial aid. Sen. Bri Woodside-Gomez@@http://oregoncommentator.com/category/ospirg/@@ explained that, at the end of each year, her lender sends her a bill for the amount she received in stipends that year.
This week, the committee met on Monday to discuss feedback received from Senators and to discuss potential changes to their proposal.
Freshman Rep. Andrew Lubash@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Andrew+Lubash@@ noted the additional program director positions would make up 88 percent of the total cost of the proposed stipend plan. He suggested eliminating the current structure of stipends being allocated to a certain number of program directors and program coordinators, and instead simply allocating groups an amount of money to divide amongst group members as each group saw fit. Lubash noted that few, if any, groups use the model of “directors” and “coordinators” set out in the stipend model. Rather, they allocate those funds among multiple group members, resulting in smaller stipends for more people.
“Right now, the model isn’t a model. It’s just a random thing,” Lubash said at Monday’s committee meeting.@@….cool story, bro@@
Executive Chief of Staff Kerry Snodgrass@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Kerry+Snodgrass@@ said she had met with Dean of Students Paul Shang@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Paul+Shang@@ in the spring and he had expressed his support for a tuition reimbursement model but had said that the University would be unable to pay for it.
Members of the committee met Tuesday with Shang and other University staff to discuss possible options, including tuition remission and placing officials on a wage-based compensation system instead of on a stipend.
“The institution is taking the position of wanting students to be compensated for their work,” Sen. President Lamar Wise@@http://asuo.uoregon.edu./senate.php?a=30@@ said after Tuesday’s meeting.
Wise also explained there was little the University or ASUO could do about the impact stipends have on their recipients’ financial aid awards.
“Any time you have some kind of income, your financial aid is going to get adjusted,” Wise said Monday.
Wise said the committee would meet again today prior to the Senate meeting to potentially make alterations to their proposal.
“It might be similar,” Wise said, “but I’m not sure at all.”