The Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee postponed its decision on whether to fund OSPIRG next year because the committee booked the hearing room for only 2 1/2 hours.
The ASUO Executive recommended the committee no longer fund its contract with OSPIRG, which conducts advocacy and research on behalf of University students, saying the group had not adequately demonstrated its effectiveness. Opponents and supporters of OSPIRG filled most of the 95 seats in 146 Straub Hall, and crowded the doorways and aisles of the classroom. When time ran out on the meeting, which began at 3:30 p.m., there were still at least six audience members waiting to speak before the committee.
It would take a unanimous vote of the committee to defund OSPIRG. Sen. Tina Snodgrass said she did not feel comfortable taking away all of the funding, but would prefer cutting the contract from roughly $120,000 to $25,000.
ACFC Chair Walid Wahed said the new information committee members learned during the hearing would affect their decision-making process.
“None of us feel at a level where we want to make a decision,” Wahed said.
Opponents of OSPIRG questioned how much benefit students receive for the money the ASUO pays the group annually. Many said they question the process through which the group selects its political campaigns.
“Their practices are shady at best, and their initiatives end up costing students more than they save,” Department Finance Committee Chair Demic Tipitino said. OSPIRG’s supporters defended the value of having the group on campus, saying it helps students help others.
“You might say, ‘Oh, it’s not important,’ but it is important because it gives students the opportunity to make ethical choices,” University junior Cimmeron Gillespie said before the committee, citing OSPIRG’s work in bringing fair trade coffee to campus.
ACFC members said they would also be forced to take into account the possibility they would need to fund the University’s contract with Lane Transit District for bus service for the coming year. ASUO rules dictate that budget committees must keep their total spending for the coming year under 107 percent of this year’s budget, which would be far more difficult to do if LTD’s contract, worth more than $800,000, needed to be accommodated as well.
The ACFC had been voting on budgets for the upcoming school year under the assumption that ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz’s transportation fee proposal would pass, removing the bus contract from the ACFC’s oversight. However, it is uncertain whether the Oregon University System will approve the fee because its members do not support creating new fees for students and because the legal status of creating the fee is unclear.
“I have been summoned before the legislature and told they don’t want more student fees,” Jay Kenton, OUS vice chair for finance, said Wednesday evening.
Kenton said he and his colleagues at OUS still support the creation of a separate fee for transportation. He also said OUS is examining the possibility of creating two separate institutional fees or changing ASUO rules to accommodate the fee.
LTD’s contract hearing will be at 7 p.m. Thursday in the EMU Metolius Room.
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