ASUO Programs Administrator Vanessa Harris decided Thursday not to act on Emerald editor in chief Michael J. Kleckner’s grievance against the ASUO Programs Finance Committee. Harris said the grievance was out of her jurisdiction because the Emerald is not an ASUO program, but an independent nonprofit corporation, and she recommended that Kleckner address his grievance to the ASUO Student Senate.
Kleckner filed the grievance because he believed PFC had not followed “Robert’s Rules of Order” in recalling the Emerald’s budget. He asked Harris to rule that PFC’s vote to recall the Emerald’s budget was null and void, but because Harris could not act on the grievance, PFC proceeded with its scheduled recall hearings Thursday night.
PFC members said they decided to recall the Emerald’s budget because they were not comfortable with the subscription formula that was brought to the first hearing. Committee members added they did not want to continue to determine how much money to allocate to the Emerald based on arbitrary numbers.
After an hour of debate, PFC devised a formula that could be used in forthcoming years based on printing costs, the Emerald’s readership and the number of subscriptions to buy for students. Kleckner said the Emerald’s readership is composed of 70 percent students, 15 percent faculty and staff and 15 percent alumni and the community.
PFC approved the Emerald’s final student fee allocation at $118,963 for 2003-04, a decrease of 0.86 percent. The committee arrived at this figure by multiplying 8,400 subscriptions by an 8.38 cent subscription fee and 169 issues.
Kleckner said he was pleased with the formula PFC devised because in future budget hearings the Emerald will know exactly what information to provide to the committee. In previous years, presenters of the Emerald budget had to try and predict what information they thought PFC might want to look at.
PFC also recalled the Career Center’s budget to discuss a GTF position that had not been funded at the group’s previous budget hearing. Career Center Director Larry Smith said the group wanted the GTF position because it would help them make the Career Center’s budget more efficient by replacing some of the work that was done by three full-time staff members. Committee members said they were impressed by this creative budget solution and allocated $4,856 for the GTF position, and approved the Career Center’s budget at $215,181 for 2003-04, a 16.45 percent increase.
A representative for the Survival Center appeared at Thursday’s meeting to ask PFC to grant the group an extension of its deadline to appeal because it had missed its original deadline because of unforeseen problems. However, PFC stood firmly behind its established process and decided not to grant the extension.
Finally, PFC read and approved budget totals for four groups that had been misread at previous hearings. Oregon Future Lawyers Association’s budget for 2003-04 was $3,526, a 14.65 percent decrease. PFC approved the Ecological Design Center’s total budget at $18,372, a 8.13 percent increase. Land Air Water’s budget for 2003-04 was $17,048 a 1.08 percent decrease. PFC had allocated a total of $53,622 to Conflict Resolution Services for 2003-04, a 15.29 percent increase.