Campus Recycling employees and volunteers celebrated Tuesday after a vote by the ASUO Department Finance Committee that program directors said saved student jobs and composting services.
The DFC’s unanimous decision to increase the program’s budget by $104,272 was greeted by nearly thirty seconds of rapturous applause in a packed EMU hearing room. Karyn Kaplan, who runs Campus Recycling, threw her arms around ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz when the decision was announced, then tuned to her supporters to lavish them with handshakes, embraces and free hats emblazoned with the program’s logo.
“That was a really hard decision that will have long-term benefits,” Kaplan said.
The increase provides Campus Recycling with most of the $112,697 Kaplan requested. A larger increase would have forced the DFC, which also partially funds eight other programs, to increase its budget by more than the seven percent allowed under ASUO rules. Dotters-Katz said the rest of the money is likely to come from roughly $120,000 that the University has earned from sales of energy tax credits. The ASUO Senate controls the destination of that money and will decide how to spend it before the summer.
Campus Recycling created the compost program in spring 2008 after the ASUO Senate granted funding for one year of the service. Since then, it has collected one ton of compostable material every month, according to statistics compiled by Campus Recycling. However, because composting was not part of the Campus Recycling’s regular budget, it would not have been included this year without a substantial increase for the department.
Campus Recycling employs roughly 40 students, making it one of the largest student
employers on campus. However, Kaplan said that without the increases she was asking for, the program would have to cut five to 10 student jobs because of increases in the state’s minimum wage and decreases in the amount of money available from the federal government to work study students.
Kaplan said Campus Recycling currently disposes of roughly 50 percent of the University’s waste. She acknowledged that full funding for Campus Recycling would cost students $15 in increases to the incidental fee that funds ASUO programs, but said that without the recycling program students would have to pay more for trash disposal.
“How many other programs in the ASUO are available (to) and benefit all students?” Kaplan asked the committee.
Kaplan said she and her staff began organizing student support for the program, sending out e-mails and circulating petitions after it became apparent that the composting program may not have been funded. Program representatives brought petitions with more than 1,000 signatures to the meeting. The campus branch of OSPIRG and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation also each gathered around 1,000 signatures, representatives said.
More than 50 people crowded into two combined hearing rooms to show support for Campus Recycling, including three students in costume – a tree, a college graduate in cap and gown, and a can of worms. The extent of student support moved Dotters-Katz to refuse to sign any budget that did not include as much funding as possible for Campus Recycling.
Campus and Federal Politics
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