The Programs Finance Committee approved a budget of $4,455 for the Veterans and Family Student Association in a hearing Friday night that took more than an hour.
With the VFSA’s budget, the committee’s total allocations will be slightly higher than ASUO Senate leaders have signaled they are willing to accept.
Senate President Athan Papailiou and Vice President Patrick Boye sent a memo to committee members on Thursday that said the committee should not dip into funds that could lower the incidental fee, currently $208 a term. The University has agreed to absorb more of the Career Center budget next year.
“These unallocated funds should be placed back in the hands of students and should not be reallocated so the original benchmark passed by the ASUO Student Senate is not compromised,” Papailiou and Boye wrote.
In October the Senate recommended that the committee’s budget grow no more than 5.5 percent next year. According to ASUO Finance Coordinator Matt Rose, the PFC is set to present an increase of 3.77 percent to the Senate.
But if the Career Center had been included, the committee would have spent more than the Senate’s original recommendation.
Sen. Nick Meyers, PFC Chairman Jacob Brennan, Programs Representative Tri Vo, and Vice Chairwoman Mei Li Yu voted for the $4,455 budget. Executive Appointee Brandon Culbertson, who forcefully advocated giving the VFSA more money, abstained from the vote.
Sen. Diego Hernandez did not attend the meeting. He said he was scheduled to be in Portland on Friday and thought he would only be missing the third hearing for the ASUO Constitution Court.
Sen. Nate Gulley attended the hearing and advocated giving the group the $6,960 the PFC voted for last Monday. He said the best way to be fair to all other student groups would be to spend all of the money made available by the Career Center.
Concerns about whether the Senate would reject the PFC’s entire budget dominated the meeting, along with concerns about what was fair to other groups.
Sen. Lee Warnecke said he would vote against any budget that went over the original benchmark, which would have allowed little more than $3,300 for the VFSA.
That number came from former Sen. Steven Wilsey, who created the PFC’s spending model. Even after Wilsey resigned Monday night, PFC members continued to follow Wilsey’s spending model at Tuesday’s recall hearing, despite allocating more to VFSA than Wilsey had scheduled.
Chairman Brennan said he was comfortable going over budget for the VFSA and will defend his committee’s budget when it comes before the Senate. He said the committee continued to spend on Tuesday, despite giving about $3,600 more than had been budgeted to VFSA, because he always expected that the VFSA budget would be reconsidered.
Warnecke told the PFC that Wilsey is highly respected by his former colleagues and committee members “would have a lot of convincing to do” if they went over budget. Wilsey told senators Wednesday they should vote against the PFC budget if it included more than $3,300 for the VFSA.
But Brennan now supports the budget, as does Meyers, who will have a vote when it comes to the Senate.
Meyers railed against the entire budget process repeatedly, saying every decision made was “arbitrary.”
“The entire idea of equity in the system is nonsense,” Meyers said. “We’re told to make a qualitative analysis and then we’re told we can’t.” He said most budgets were based on what a group did “a few years ago.”
“We are doing something completely arbitrary no matter what we do,” he said.
The VFSA is a new group that has not yet received a budget. New groups are traditionally given $300 to start. After that, budget increases are doled out based on a group’s spending and fundraising.
VFSA Co-Director Shane Addis said the group raised $11,000 last year and more than $2,000 this year.
“Well that’s what makes the system ridiculous,” Meyers said.
It was because committee members thought the VFSA presented an exceptional case that they were recalled to be given more funds. But no one, including Addis, expected the committee to approve $6,960 last Monday.
Wilsey resigned his seat in protest of the budget and what he saw as ASUO President Emily McLain’s advocacy of it. McLain later said that she was trying to find a compromise between Wilsey’s suggestion of $3,300 and the $6,960 the VFSA was asking for.
On Wednesday, Sen. Hernandez stormed out of the Senate after defending the VFSA. He said Sunday that he will remain in his position until his term expires but he will not seek re-election.
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