Students may shell out an additional $14 per term in incidental fees next year if budget predictions for the three major fee-funded groups approved by the Student Senate Wednesday night hold true.
In an emotionally charged, three-hour-long session, the Senate approved tentative funding increases for the Athletic Department Finance Committee, Programs Finance Committee and EMU Board of Directors.
The current benchmarks, which provide a rough idea
of how much money the three programs can give to other groups during the budget process this winter, would require each student to spend about $195 per term in incidental fees next year.
Last year, the Senate “bought down” the fee $4 per term by using surplus funds, but this year there’s no buy down and students have to pay what they were originally projected to pay last year. The other part of the increase, $10, is because of increased costs.
Athletic Department
Finance Committee
After lengthy debate, the Senate voted 8-7-1 to pass a 5.3
percent funding increase for
the ADFC, totaling $72,602.
The ADFC bargains with the Athletic Department to buy student tickets.
The ADFC initially asked for a 7 percent increase of about $95,889 to maintain its “current service level” and fulfill a 10-year ticket contract for athletic games with the Athletic Department signed four years ago, Senator Kevin Day said.
Students currently pay 46.8 percent of “fair market price”
of tickets, but the contract
stipulates they pay 50 percent, Day said.
Day said ticket prices are raised on a three-year schedule, with an increase likely slated for next year.
He said if ticket prices remain constant, the current level of funding would adequately meet the 50 percent stipulation for the first time, but a hike in ticket prices would require ADFC to have a larger budget.
Although Vice President Mena Ravassipour recommended the 7 percent increase on behalf of the ASUO Executive, many senators questioned the need for the increase.
PFC member Mason Quiroz said many students who receive incidental fee-funded tickets for football games, which are free to students, do not actually use their tickets, costing the student body about $37,000 a game and more than $100,000 a year. Quiroz called the no-show problem a “huge red flag we need to look into.”
“I think it is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed,” he said. “We have the power to make sure we work on that problem.”
Day agreed that only 4,500
to 5,000 of more than 6,000 student tickets are routinely redeemed
at games and said the ADFC is
looking into the problem. But Day emphasized that the “no-show factor” is a complicated problem, hinging on weather and game time changes, that requires further research and study during the ongoing budget process.
“We didn’t really want to attack it quite yet,” he said.
Senators discussed possible options for decreasing the money needed by the ADFC for tickets, such as reducing the number of tickets offered and charging a minimal fee for tickets.
But Day said charging students for tickets is not fair and would
raise questions about how to handle the money.
Day said if the 7 percent increase wasn’t approved, the Athletic Department might not take it as a “good-faith effort” to pay as stipulated by the contract.
“They’ve been nice enough not to act out on us,” he said. “They’re kind of getting restless.”
He added that the increase would translate to less than a dollar
per student.
“Again, we’re looking for current service level, not growth,” he said.
Day said senators should take into account the actual amount of monetary increase rather than the percentage change because the ADFC has a smaller budget than the other programs.
Senator Khanh Le said he supported a 5.3 percent increase because “right now, all I’m saying is that students’ money is being (wasted).”
Senator Toby Hill-Meyer said ticket availability to everyone is important, but priority for funding should be spread out among student groups because funding for athletics takes money away from other programs.
“It makes me think, why do we have this disparity?” he asked.
Programs Finance
Committee
The Senate also voted 12-1-2 to approve a benchmark of a 5.62 percent increase of $275,000 for the PFC, which allocates money to student groups.
PFC Chairwoman Persis Pohowalla said the increase was partly due to the need to bolster reserve funds, which have decreased over the past five years. Pohowalla emphasized that the PFC intends to allocate money so that it comes in under the 5.62 benchmark.
ASUO Accounting Coordinator Jennifer Creighton-Neiwert said the increase is also necessary to accommodate a 20-cent raise in Oregon minimum wage, and because the program is expecting a two-year salary freeze for classified staff and Officers of Administration to end, the PFC budgeted a 2 percent salary increase for those employees.
Yet some senators disagreed with the initial benchmark, which was also approved by the executive.
Day said stipends for some student groups may be too high, proposing a 2 percent funding increase of about $97,000 to be “consistent with what’s gone on tonight.”
“I don’t think $200,000 growth is needed for the program,” he said.
Senator Lisa Lam agreed, saying she hoped all the budgets would be equally scrutinized despite lower initial benchmark projections.
Pohowalla said 2 percent would not be enough to fund the 140 groups to which the committee allocates money.
Senator Rodrigo Moreno-Villamar questioned the motivation behind the 2 percent motion.
“We should not make these amendments based on how we felt about the last decision,” he said.
Senator Austin Shaw-Phillips said the PFC request was acceptable, saying “everything on here is pretty reasonable.”
“Decreasing the stipend model is not the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s out there,” Shaw-Phillips said.
EMU Board
of Directors
Senators voted 14-1-1 to pass an executive-approved 7 percent increase for the EMU Board of
Directors, which oversees finances for the EMU.
Chairwoman Aryn Clark said
because the EMU is a state auxiliary, about 82 percent of the board’s budget is mandated by programs
to which it allocates money. She said increased labor costs and
the need to repair the aging EMU, parts of which are 50 years old, leave only 18 percent to work with for potential cuts.
Ravassipour and Representatives of the board agreed the benchmark is not a long-term solution for EMU funding problems, but some senators spoke out in favor of using some or all of the board’s $130,000 surplus to buy down this year’s budget.
EMU board member Ethan Firpo said the EMU can go into debt to the state, as it has in the past. But he said it has an opportunity to get out of debt, adding that using the surplus is “not a valid paradigm.”
“It’s more like suturing with a fish hook with the express purposes of pulling out that fishhook later,” he said.
Firpo added that many parts of the EMU are in need of repair, saying a “colony of sewer cockroaches” is feeding off a broken sewer main in the tunnels beneath the building.

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