The ASUO Programs Finance Committee continues to remind groups that the ASUO will be unable to reimburse student groups for single-use disposable bottled water in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
The mandate against bottled water being funded by the student incidental fee began in February 2010 in the form of a resolution written by “Take Back the Tap,” one of the Climate Justice League’s four current campaigns.
Sen. Laura Hinman, one of the senators who sits on the PFC, said a number of the multicultural groups who hold yearly cultural events had line items on their budget that indicated bottled water use in the past, prior to the resolutions passing.
However, several student groups affected by the resolutions that oppose the incidental fee’s use for water bottles are fine with finding a new way to distribute water.
While specific spending on bottled water is not listed on a group’s general budget, when the budget packet breaks down the events, it will occasionally list spending for “food and beverages.” When the committee has seen this line item, members have asked for clarification about the “beverages.”
Hinman said that because the controllers cannot reimburse money spent on bottled water, the not receiving funding is not the only negative result for groups. If groups have bottled water line items and are not warned, the unspent money could cause a decrease to the group’s budget the following year.
“Giving groups fair warning will keep them from not being reimbursed,” Hinman said. “That’s another example of an area where (groups could be prevented from) using funds.”Hinman voted against the most recent resolution, but she is working to inform groups about it because it is a part of ASUO rules.
“Once something becomes a rule, I want groups to follow it and I want it to be done correctly,” Hinman said.
CJL authored a second resolution that the ASUO Senate passed in Nov. 2010 that said the Senate urged EMU facilities to stop selling bottled water.
Originally, the resolution also included a provision against larger water coolers; however, senators said there are offices on campus too far from TBTT’s water spigots.
PFC members have been recommending programs replace their bottled water with these coolers for events.
Native American Student Union board member Aryel Harrington said the group had used bottled water in the past for the Pow Wow and 3-on-3 basketball tournament, but the group doesn’t have a problem with using water coolers and cups.
The UO Arab Student Union is a cultural group on campus that runs “Arabian Nights,” a celebration of Arabic culture, every year. The group already used large containers of water before the resolution to run the event, so group operation was not affected.
Arab Student Union co-president Beshara Kehdi said the group didn’t use bottled water because of the size of events.
“It would be too many if we got single bottles of water,” Kehdi said.
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