The ASUO has discussed changing the size of its stipends before, but the current discussion could affect how student leaders are compensated.
One possible solution senators are discussing is a kind of tuition reimbursement system for students who participate in the ASUO.
The idea behind it is that during budget season, senators are required to attend 12 Programs Finance Committee hearings, two contract negotiations in the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, two Department Finance Committee hearings and three hearings of the EMU Board of Directors. On top of school and other senatorial duties, some of these requirements deter would-be senators who need more than $150 per month, the base stipend for ASUO senators, to continue attending school.
“I do think it’s an experience, but it’s an experience a lot of students can’t access,” Sen. Kaitlyn Lange said to the Senate Jan. 19. She added that the Senate should choose to make the positions more accessible if possible.
In recent years, attempts to alter the stipend model, which sets the guidelines for any paying ASUO positions, have not been successful. Former ASUO Sen. Lyzi Diamond spearheaded an effort to get the Senate treasurer position on a similar pay scale to other Senate officers and update what was perceived to be an outdated model.
The attempt failed because of a disagreement on how changes to the model were supposed to be approved.
Sen. Brian Powell said that although a working group has been created to research and create fixes for stipends, the group is holding back actual work until after the 2011-12 ASUO budget is mostly settled.
“There hasn’t been much going forward on it yet because we’re trying to get through budget season,” Powell said. “To try to change the stipend model is a big process, and it’s something that is going to require a lot of thorough research if we want to get it right.”
While most senators were in agreement about the idea of reimbursing some amount of tuition, there was dissent on how to pay for any compensation changes. Some suggested finding money in the incidental fee, but Sen. Emma Newman opposed this at the meeting because of what the fee is designated for.
“How does that benefit our whole student body if we get a tuition decrease?” Newman said.
Lange also mentioned budget season as a large reason why the model needs to be fixed. Lange, Powell and others have calculated the pay for finance senators during January and February, the heat of budget season, at approximately $1 per hour.
“I don’t think the model properly compensates the amount of work we do,” Lange said. “It wouldn’t be the same for academic, but they’re still paid awfully.”
Lange told Senate she’d like to see an improvement to the ASUO payment system.
“We are one of the strongest student governments in the nation, and I guarantee you we are on the bottom of the pay,” Lange said.
Some senators, including Powell, have been doing minor research already into other universities’ student governments. Their findings, Powell said, support what Lange has been saying; he specifically cited Washington State University as one school with a tuition reimbursement model.
“You look at other schools that have less responsibility than we do, and they make more money than we do,” Powell said.
Powell sees examples of the accessibility issue in his own fraternity house.
“A number of guys I know from my fraternity, for instance, who I think would do a really good job in the (unfilled Senate seat 13), have to work. And the time that they would have to take off of work to do something like this, and the pay they’d get for it just doesn’t match that,” Powell said. “And it makes the ASUO unnecessarily exclusive.”
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