ASUO’s Programs Finance Committee approved part of the Native American Student Union’s budget for fiscal year 2023-2024 during a budget hearing on Jan. 17.
NASU leaders missed the deadline for a budget hearing in November and failed to meet extended deadlines.
NASU co-director Kaitlynn Spino said during the hearing that the student organization’s failure to meet these deadlines stemmed from its student leadership struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, NASU had one student leader responsible for meeting budget deadlines. That student leader didn’t make it to NASU’s PFC hearing in November and missed the deadline to submit NASU’s budget.
After the hearing in January, PFC approved a partial budget for NASU. After receiving backlash for the budget cut, PFC fully covered NASU’s largest line item, its annual Mother’s Day Powwow, for $18,000. It gave $675 total for all other line items. With other expenses, including administrative and stipend line items, NASU’s total budget comes out to $29,999.
NASU was one of several student organizations, including the International Student Association and Ecological Design Center, whose budgets were cut due to representatives missing their budget hearing deadline last year.
The previous PFC chair, Jon Laus, who is now graduated, made the decision to cut the budgets of all student organizations who did not have their budget hearing before PFC’s November deadline by 50%.
NASU attended a budget hearing last year on March 1, which was more than a month after the entirety of ASUO’s budget was voted on by the ASUO Senate, PFC Chair Madison McDonald said in an email.
NASU made a post on Instagram announcing its budget was cut in half. More than a hundred people, including Native American studies instructors and members of other student organizations like ROAR, showed up to NASU’s budget hearing on Jan. 17.
Jordan Harrington, a NASU co-director, said at the hearing that NASU’s recent low percentage of 80% fund utilization was largely due to NASU struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic to find students to fill leadership positions.
“People were not here on campus to fill those leadership roles,” Harrington said. “It was very difficult, and unfortunately it all fell on a single person, but they did their absolute best.”
Harrington said that NASU is doing its best to not rely completely on the I-Fee. NASU applied for funding from a variety of sources besides ASUO, including sending letters asking for donations to alumni, as well as requests for grants and foundations from the recognized tribes in Oregon, Harrington said.
“Getting the budget reinstated doesn’t help us right now. It helps next year’s budget, and it’s helping out the next [NASU] co-directors,” Kaitlynn Spino, a NASU co-director, said during the budget hearing.
UO recently started the Home Flight Scholars Program to offer financial assistance and social resources to American Indian and Alaska Native students, but a cut to NASU’s budget would keep the student organization from implementing social services, Spino said.
NASU leaders were encouraged by PFC members during the meeting to come back later to seek surplus funds. According to McDonald, NASU is almost guaranteed surplus funds due to PFC’s larger-than-usual surplus fund this fiscal year.
The surplus comes from unused I-Fee funds awarded to student groups from the last fiscal year.
“A lot of organizations did not use their entire budget during COVID, and so that all gets returned back to surplus,” McDonald said in an interview with the Emerald.
McDonald said PFC had a difficult time contacting student organizations last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but since then they have worked to improve their outreach to student organizations about when to submit necessary budget forms and attend budget hearings.
Harrington said communication between ASUO and NASU has suffered since the pandemic, and he was concerned that PFC was not aware of the impact NASU’s programs have on student life, but he is working to build back a relationship between the student government and NASU.
“NASU is going to continue as a student group and so will ASUO. The quicker we lay this out and have them realize what we do is important, the better,” Harrington said.
