ASUO Senate approved the ACFC budget in a close vote last night, passing several large budget increases that included a contentious 97 percent increase for OSPIRG.
The group gave the United States Student Association a 100 percent increase, ASUO Legal Services a 24.7 percent increase, Lane Transit District a 3.91 percent increase and the athletic department a 0.33 percent increase.
The OSPIRG budget increase proved to be the most controversial, however; it regained its funding just last year after being stripped of it in 2009.

Due to Constitution Court’s ruling on Sunday in favor of ASUO Sen. Ben Rudin’s grievance against ASUO Sen. Ben Bowman, ACFC needed to revote on the decision, done an hour before the Senate meeting. The outcome of this hearing was the same as last month’s hearing, and thus, the increase was made in the budget.
This prompted a discussion among the senators. The first to comment was Rudin, who spoke to the fact that he believes the organization is fundamentally wrong and shouldn’t be funded by student dollars.
“I am all about the student body being engaged,” he said, “and I’m all about spending money so they can do this, but paying advocates is not that.”
He made it clear that his issue was not with the amount of money but rather the principle of the issue.
“You don’t have the authority to demand student money to pay professional lobbyists on issues that students don’t choose,” Rudin said.
The biggest issue arose from confusion in the OSPIRG budget itself. Sen. Kaitlyn Lange questioned where the money would be going, and there was a disconnect between what she read in the budget and what ACFC was detailing.
ACFC vice chair Christina Hardesty@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=+Hardesty@@ explained that the increase would be going toward two new positions for OSPIRG, and that the University is not the only one paying for these positions.
Lange asked for the exact numbers in the increase.
“It concerns me that we cannot find these numbers,” she said. “I want to know why there aren’t line items for what we’re paying for.”
ASUO President Ben Eckstein explained why he and the executive support OSPIRG.
“Along the line with any organization, there isn’t a single penny you pay that doesn’t end up in the pockets of advocates making decisions,” Eckstein said. “What we are saying with OSPIRG is our students deserve to have people who represent us and our lives.”
Sen. Laura Hinman expressed concerns about the amount of money being allocated for off-campus staff positions, such as the ones for OSPIRG.
“I’m sure that there are many programs and organizations on this campus that could use that money,” Hinman said.
Sen. Lindy Mabuya agreed with Hinman, saying she would rather have the money stay on campus for student groups or have funds going toward sending students to Salem to lobby.
Eckstein said, “Our executive has always expressed the need for service delivery to students, and we need staff to provide services to students. It is not unusual to pay for people to deliver those services to students.”
Another important budget discussed was the athletic department’s.
Bowman explained that the small increase made in the budget is due to a miscalculation in last year’s books. The ACFC budget from last year was $5,000 short, so they agreed to allocate those funds.
Many questions arose about the ticket system and number of tickets.
“There will not be an increase in tickets next year,” ACFC member and Sen. Bri Woodside-Gomez said. “We did put it in the contract that students will be able to return their tickets until Friday. Then students who didn’t get a ticket will have a better chance of going.”