ASUO Programs Finance Committee’s Thursday meeting was bogged down for more than 90 minutes while the ASUO Executive and PFC members clashed over “arbitrary” numbers in setting the Oregon Daily Emerald’s student fee allocation for 2003-04.
As an independent nonprofit corporation, the Emerald is granted a “subscription fee” that ASUO pays with student fees to make free papers available to students — because the paper receives additional streams of revenue from advertising and classified sales, it didn’t give line-item budgets to PFC during hearings.
Emerald editor in chief Michael J. Kleckner presented a formula for calculating subscription fees that would have charged 4.95 cents per issue per student, for a total of $132,811. He pointed out the Emerald doesn’t make a profit and that even with incidental fees, the paper has a projected loss in revenue of $56,931 for 2003-04 because of decreasing advertising sales.
But the ASUO Executive recommended that PFC only fund the paper at $109,850. ASUO Finance Coordinator Nadia Hasan based this number on 169 issues multiplied by 6,500 — the number of desired subscriptions — multiplied by a subscription cost of 10 cents per issue.
Hasan defended her recommendation, saying the Executive felt paying for 6,500 student subscriptions, a decrease from 10,000 in 2002-03, would be the best solution. She argued the Emerald produces more papers than students need and that student incidental fees should not be used to help pay for papers that go to the greater, surrounding community. She added the Executive also lowered the number of subscriptions because students can access the Emerald online.
However, Kleckner said the Emerald has always operated on the assumption that every student will have access to the paper, regardless of how many subscriptions the Executive arranges to buy during contract negotiations. He added newspapers do not become free once they are available online.
“Buying a subscription is buying a subscription, regardless of the medium it’s in,” Kleckner said.
After more than 90 minutes of debate, PFC eventually settled on a budget of $123,370 — keeping 10,000 as the number of subscriptions for 169 issues and a subscription rate of 7.3 cents — a increase of 2.81 percent.
The Survival Center, an umbrella organization for more than a dozen sub-groups focusing on environmental and social issues, appeared before PFC with more than 20 supporters to argue for budget increases despite past instances of fiscal irresponsibility.
Some PFC members said they were concerned with inadequate spending for postage and long distance accounts, but the group argued money was being spent on those line items out of their own pockets and simply not recorded in the ledgers.
Representatives for the Survival Center petitioned for stipend increases and prolonged funding for two members to work during the summer. PFC agreed to fund two summer positions, but did not grant the requested stipend increases because the group’s job descriptions did not warrant a change.
In the end, PFC decided to give the Survival Center a budget of $19,141 for 2003-04, a 6.55 percent increase.
LGBTQA presented much evidence to PFC at Thursday’s meeting, arguing the group is a benefit to students and organizes a variety of events throughout the year, such as Queer Prom, the New Year’s Eve Drag Show, and numerous workshops and discussions. Representatives for the group requested that PFC not cut their funding to buy safe-sex supplies for public distribution, despite inefficient spending in that line item last year. PFC decided to go slightly above the executive recommendation for the group and gave LGBTQA $13,285 for 2003-04, an increase of 9.33 percent.
ASUO Programs and Assessment, the group responsible for running the ASUO Controller’s Office, received a 20 percent increase from PFC and a total budget of $171,176.
The Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society requested funding from ASUO for the first time and received a beginning budget of $300.
PFC gave Students for Choice $2,236 for 2003-04, a 15.68 percent increase.
The Coalition Against Environmental Racism received a budget of $15,279, a 1.39 percent decrease.
Five groups — Amnesty International, the Latin American and Caribbean Student Organization, the Student Parents Association, the Warsaw Sports Marketing Club, and the Taiwanese Students Organization — were defunded for not submitting a budget.
Contact the senior news reporter at [email protected].