Both ASUO senators and executive staff agree that keeping Lane Transit District bus service accessible for students is important; however, they differ on who should pay for the contract.
At last Wednesday’s ASUO Senate, the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee presented the projected increases to their contracts to the Senate for approval. Because of an early attempt in the meeting to take LTD bus service off the ACFC’s budget, the conversation took longer than expected. The proposal among senators was to have the University administration deal with the contract. ASUO Executive wants the contract to remain in student control.
The Senate proposal would take the allocation for student bus fare off the student incidental fee and fund the service with a fee more akin to the one students pay each term for use of the Student Recreation Center, a service previously funded by the incidental fee.
ASUO Executive Chief of Staff Ben Eckstein said he would still support keeping LTD on the incidental fee because he said he sees students doing better at enforcing student interests.
“We believe that the only way to guarantee free transportation access for U of O students is to keep our LTD contract on the incidental fee,” Eckstein said. “Our LTD contract is an essential service for U of O students.”
Eckstein also said he has not heard any administration commitment yet to cover this possibly $1.3 million contract.
ASUO President Amelie Rousseau also supports keeping the ACFC managing the contract.
“My administration is going to prioritize keeping the service on the incidental fee, because thousands of students benefit from it and that’s what the incidental fee is for,” Rousseau said. “It’s for paying for services that students wouldn’t be able to pay for on their own.”
Andy Vobora, LTD’s director of service planning, accessibility and marketing, said the LTD pitched contract negotiation moving to the University administration for a few years because student turnover makes it difficult to maintain consistent contract negotiation.
“We’ve always thought that would be a better structure,” Vobora said. “That’s how it’s handled at LCC, and it’s an important part of the way the University works.”
Sen. Chris Bocchicchio would support this move as well. He said that in the long-term context, it’s not important to have administration commitment yet.
“It’s obviously not just a one-year thing,” Bocchicchio said.
He added that because there are regulations on how high tuition can be, the administration can limit the contract at a certain point, keeping costs lower for students.
Vobora said their requested increases were only based on the projected enrollment increase coming next year.
“It’s just the nature of the beast. If enrollment were going down, we wouldn’t ask for the same amount of money,” Vobora said. “It’s simply the enrollment figure, It’s just because 2,000 more students are going to school.”
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