OSPIRG members at the University will press for a 25 percent increase at tonight’s ASUO Programs Finance Committee meeting, despite the difficulties the group has faced at Portland State University.
The Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, a statewide environmental and consumer protection organization, was zero-funded at PSU because it asked for a contentious budget increase. Also, the group has failed in its efforts so far to establish a foothold at Oregon State University. Even if its University of Oregon budget passes PFC’s scrutiny, the Oregon Commentator could appeal any action.
PSU’s Student Fee Committee, the equivalent of the University’s PFC, raised concerns regarding the OSPIRG chapter’s use of funding at an allocation hearing Jan. 8. Representatives for the group requested a $30,000 increase in their budget for 2003-04 to help finance a new campus organizer to establish an OSPIRG chapter at Oregon State University.
SFC Chairwoman Tracy Earll said the committee did not think funding a group that works off-campus on public interest issues was a good idea, and SFC decided to zero-fund the group.
Earll added the student fee allocation process works differently at PSU and several groups are usually zero-funded when first presenting their budgets. This year the SFC has zero-funded at least 24 student groups, either because their budget requests were too high or because they were asking for funding that was not supported under PSU student fee guidelines.
OSPIRG plans to appeal their zero-funding, as is the custom for zero-funded groups at PSU, according to Earll.
“We expect to maintain funding at PSU, but sometimes it takes a couple of bumps along the way to get there,” said Ben Unger, campus program director for OSPIRG.
Unger added all five established chapters of OSPIRG are expected to contribute money to help fund the start-up of a new chapter at OSU
because that university’s fee allocation process will not immediately provide funding.
OSU student body President Bridget Burns said the university has had misfortunes in funding outside organizations. She added that OSPIRG has focused its efforts at OSU on lobbying students to subsidize the group before they even know what it’s about.
“We’re not interested in making a financial commitment to an outside organization that hasn’t proved itself as a benefit to our students,” Burns said.
Unger said he anticipates that the University of Oregon chapter of OSPIRG will not be zero-funded at tonight’s PFC budget meeting, even though they also are asking for a $150,000 budget. He said that the PFC has a better understanding of what OSPIRG does and why it is important to the University than the PSU committee does.
Unger said even though some of OSPIRG’s money goes to pay for things off-campus, such as funding the start-up of a new chapter at OSU, the group’s efforts are done on behalf of University students. He added that funding an additional campus organizer would benefit students because he or she would help organize grassroots efforts that University of Oregon students care about.
“I think the PFC sees OSPIRG as a part of the broad marketplace of ideas that student groups bring to campus,” Unger said.
OSPIRG’s opponents have consistently targeted the group’s use of student incidental fee money since it was first launched more than 30 years ago at the University.
Oregon Commentator Publisher Bret Jacobson said the Commentator has a history of opposing OSPIRG’s funding. In 1998, a former Commentator writer launched a successful campaign convincing the student body to vote against giving OSPIRG student incidental fee funding and a former Commentator editor filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of OSPIRG’s funding.
Jacobson said OSPIRG’s fiscal irresponsibility manifests itself in its single-line budget — since other student groups must provide detailed budget requests — and its practice of using student incidental fees off-campus to hire professional lobbyists.
“I don’t think you could seriously argue that sending incidental fee money up to a Portland office develops University of Oregon students in any way,” Jacobson said. “Unless you’re developing a knack for corruption.”