The ASUO will have a budget for the 2009-10 school year of $11,189,630, a 6.1 percent increase over the current budget.
In total, funding for the student government will increase by $643,249. Nearly half of the growth will pay for substantial increases required to fund Campus Recycling, a contract with Lane Transit District and tickets to an additional University football game. The increase comes despite the decision to strip OSPIRG of the nearly $120,000 it receives from the ASUO.
ASUO Senate Ombudsperson Derek Nix called the budget “horrible” and fiscally irresponsible, saying the finance committees had “basically almost increased the budget as much as possible” and brought hardships on students in the process.
“We’re increasing tuition. We’re decreasing the access and affordability of higher education,” Nix said.
ASUO Sen. Sanford Weintraub disagreed with Nix’s assessment, saying the ASUO’s finance committees had done an “exceptional” job and praising the cooperation of ASUO accountants and staffers in the process.
“I would have liked to see it fund a bit more,” Weintraub said, citing the University Men’s Center as one program that did not receive enough funding after the Programs Finance Committee rejected its request that the ASUO help pay its graduate teaching fellow.
The 2009 budget season is the first in which the ASUO’s budget is divided among four committees under the amendments to the ASUO Constitution created in the 2007-08 school year by then-President Emily McLain and former Senate President Athan Papailiou.
The changes divide funding allocations between the EMU Board and three finance committees: one each for programs and University departments and one that funds the student government’s contracts and the purchase of student tickets to Duck football and men’s basketball home games.
However, the restructuring presents an obstacle to the budget process for next year’s student government. In a memorandum to Vice President for Student Affairs Robin Holmes, University Deputy General Counsel Randy Geller said Oregon law requires the ASUO to divide its budget as it was under the three-committee structure that was in place before the amendments: separate budgets for the Athletic Department and for programs and services in addition to the EMU Board.
“Absent a change in (state law), the work of the four finance committees must be narrowed to the three major categories in the recommendation to the University President,” Geller wrote in the memorandum.
Nix said the changes will require Holmes and ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz to devote extra time to redrawing the budget before Dotters-Katz is required to turn the budget in.
McLain said she was surprised there were problems this year because the administration, including University President Dave Frohnmayer, was involved in the creation of the amendments.
“Last year we got the go-ahead from the administration, so maybe they came upon the (Oregon Administrative Rule) after that fact,” McLain said.
Dotters-Katz said, whatever the reasons for the problems, he will sort them out.
“I am committed to working expeditiously yet diligently to creating both a short-term fix and a long-term solution which places our finance committee structure within the OAR in question,” Dotters-Katz said.
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