OSPIRG will get one more chance to argue for student fee funding after the ASUO’s contract negotiators voted to postpone a final decision on its contract Thursday night. However, if OSPIRG gets any money, it is likely to be well below the amount its leaders requested.
The Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, a statewide, nonprofit, political advocacy organization that draws funding from campus governments, must now answer how it will allocate its funding if given less than the roughly $117,000 it requested from
the ASUO.
The ASUO’s Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, which negotiates contracts for the student government, will likely have the final say on whether OSPIRG receives funding for the 2010-11 school year.
The group has been controversial on campus for years. It functions by hiring Salem- and Washington, D.C.-based professionals to carry out political campaigns on behalf of student activists.
Campus critics have questioned the way it sets its agenda and the amount of influence its Portland-based sister organization, the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, wields. Those are questions even some OSPIRG supporters said the group still
hadn’t answered.
Those concerns led the student government to strip the group’s funding in 2009. This year, however, ASUO President Emma Kallaway called for the ACFC to restore at least some of the group’s funding.
Despite that request, OSPIRG came before the ACFC asking for roughly $117,000, which is close to the amount revoked last year. Those sympathetic to OSPIRG proposed amounts as low as $60,000, which group members said was the lowest feasible amount of funding.
OSPIRG Student Chapter Chair Charles Denson said the organization would be “toothless” without the full funding, which provoked frustration from many student leaders skeptical of OSPIRG, including those on the committee.
“We’re not going to hand it over to you and have you accept that $60,000 begrudgingly,” committee member Ben Eckstein said. “You need to convince us that we can
still benefit.”
By the end of the hearing, OSPIRG’s members agreed to return with proposals for partial budgets. The date for the next hearing on the budget is yet to be determined, but the ACFC must make a decision on OSPIRG’s budget by the final week of winter term.
The chance of even a partial request passing still hangs in the balance. The vote on giving OSPIRG another hearing required a tie-breaking “yes” vote from Kallaway’s proxy on the committee, Grace Bounds, because only four members were present. The absent fifth member, Joey Freedman, voted to strip OSPIRG’s funding in 2009, meaning that on a full ACFC there are likely three votes against the group.
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