Tempers flared during the six-hour Programs Finance Committee budget hearings Tuesday night.
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Law Reporter requested $300 for publication. After brief discussion about the applicability of the OMMLR to the University as a whole, PFC voted to approve the budget.
The executive team prepared a $34,929 recommendation for Sexual Assault Support Services, which was about 33 percent short of the $51,786 SASS requested.
The executive team expressed concerns that SASS was duplicating services already available through groups and programs on campus.
However, after receiving information from the Office of Student Life and the Women’s Center that called the duplication into question, the executive recommended tabling the budget until a committee could be formed to investigate whether duplication exists.
About 20 representatives from SASS were present to argue for the importance of the services they offer.
The debate became heated between the executives and PFC members who said they didn’t want to delay the approval process anymore and those who said they wanted to table the issue until more information was available.
“I think that if we do anything other than give them the money that they’re asking for at this moment then we’re not doing the students any service,” said PFC member Mason Quiroz.
Quiroz made a motion to approve a $51,786 budget for SASS. The motion failed 2-3-0. Immediately afterward, PFC member Khanh Le made an identical motion, which also failed 2-3-0. After more discussion, PFC member Jael Anker-Lagos made a motion to approve SASS’s budget request. The motion passed 4-0-1.
In the recess immediately following the hearing, there was a heated verbal exchange about the process used to approve SASS’s budget.
Before returning from recess, PFC chair Persis Pohowalla asked the group, “Are we mentally ready for this budget hearing?”
The group then approved a $145,647 budget for the Office of Student Advocacy, which included a 7.1 percent increase from last year to cover the cost of increased insurance that the University now requires all its contract workers to carry.
The Public Relations Student Society of America was granted a 14.2 percent increase for a total budget of $738.
The Oregon Law Student Public Interest Fund was allotted $1,391, which represented a 0.5 percent increase from last year.
Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society received a 13.4 percent increase to help fund the group’s trip to a national conference. The total approved budget was $570.
The executive recommendation for the Pre-Health Society was a 6.6 percent decrease from last year because the society underspent its budget last year. PFC decided to keep the group’s funding steady because of a change in leadership at the Pre-Health Society. PFC approved a $431 budget.
For the Pre-Dental Society, the executive recommended a 53 percent decrease because of underspending. PFC, again taking a change of leadership into account, kept the group at current funding by approving a $266 budget.
The National Association of Black Journalists, which has existed at the University for more than ten years, requested incidental fee money for the first time this year. They were granted the $300 maximum that a new group can receive.
PFC tabled the budget for the Oregon Future Lawyers Association because the payroll for the editors of the group’s journal was not budgeted according to the stipend model used by incidental fee-funded groups.
The Pre-Law Society was defunded last year because representatives from the group failed to appear at their budget hearing. A group of students seeking to resurrect the group was granted a $260 budget.

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