Lane Transit District rejected the ASUO’s request to pay for bus service next year at a reduced rate, leaving the student government unsure what course it will take as it plans its budget for the coming school year.
The ASUO had asked to keep the rate of $15.12 per student per term it paid for bus service this year going into next year, despite LTD’s raising its rate for group contracts to $15.96 per person per season, in order to avoid going over the traditional cap for budget increases next year.
Instead of accepting that proposal, LTD has given the ASUO a counteroffer: $15.54 per student per term, halfway between the two amounts.
“It was a way to kind of say: ‘We understand your situation,’” LTD spokesperson Andy Vobora said. “‘We have a situation too, so let’s meet in the middle.’”
The ASUO still doesn’t know what its next move will be in response to the offer. ASUO Sen. Alex McCafferty, also one of the students on the committee who negotiates the ASUO’s contract with LTD, said the ASUO doesn’t yet know whether it will accept the offer or how it would finance doing so.
“We have a variety of options,” he said.
Meeting the request would not be allowed under the ASUO’s rules, which do not allow any of the committees that allocate the ASUO’s budgets to increase their budgets by more than 7 percent in a year. Paying LTD at the $15.54 rate would increase the budget for the ASUO’s Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee by almost 20 percent, and is
therefore not viable.
But every avenue available to the ASUO presents the student government with an unpalatable outcome.
Completely doing away with the bus service is all but unthinkable for either party. Free bus service for students is the ASUO’s most recognizable service. And providing it to the ASUO also accounts for about $1 million of LTD’s $36 million budget.
“Although it is an option,” McCafferty said, “I don’t think it’s being considered by
either party.”
But that leaves the ASUO with few other options, and all are painful. One is cutting back the hours of the late-night 79x route, which is completely ASUO-funded. The others involve cutting existing contracts for other services.
“It’s a high student traffic route that receives a lot of praise,” McCafferty said. “We wouldn’t want to sacrifice student safety and access to that.”
The other options all involve cuts to other contracts to bring the increase in the ASUO’s contract spending below 7 percent. The agreements the committee negotiates include those that give students free tickets to football and men’s basketball games, provide free copies of the Emerald and make lawyers available to students. And of the roughly $2.6 million the ASUO plans to spend on other contracts, only about $7,000 will be to increase services beyond their current levels.
But McCafferty said there is still potential for more negotiation with LTD, and Vobora said he understands the ASUO’s predicament.
“It kind of puts the ASUO staff in a tough position to kind of come back and work that out,” he said. “Hopefully, I think they’re kind of able to work that out.”
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