News:

At 11 p.m. on a usual Wednesday in the EMU Walnut room, you will find the ASUO Student Senate parsing through its heavy agenda; dispensing money here, passing resolutions there. Wednesday, January 12, 2011 was not, however, a usual Wednesday. On this particular day at 11 p.m., the senators were milling about, collecting their belongings, making their way for the exits. Their meeting, which included 5 special requests and the establishment of a process for spending the upcoming Over-Realized Fund, had adjourned on time.

Things got off to a slow start. After approving $5,748 for Graduate Evolutionary Biology and Ecology Students to host a campus lecture series, the senators got stalled up for almost an hour dealing with a request from the Chinese Students and Scholars Association for funding to hold their annual China Night event.

The confusion started when they explained that their event had been an annual occurrence. Under normal procedures, annual events are accounted for in an organization’s budget, which goes through the Programs Finance Committee. Sens. Laura Hinman and Brian Powell noticed this and asked why, with Hinman noting “You’ve come in every year for a special request.”

There were additional questions from the Senate regarding where money raised from last year’s event had been spent, as well as why the group hadn’t coordinated with any University departments or the Chinese Student Association, to which one of the presenters replied, “There are a lot of complicated reasons.” After their initial request of $6,463 was denied, the Senate did approve $5,000 for the event.

Special requests continued with the Clark Honors College Student Association, which received $15,569 to bring author Tracy Kidder to campus, and the European Student Association, which received $76 to fund the newly-reformed group’s upcoming open house.

Last but not least was the Senate’s own request to allocate $675 to pay a stipend for the constitutionally mandated Freshman Senator. After discussion of who the position would be open to, the number of budget hearings the new member would be required to attend, and the definition of “Senate Intern” (important because the Freshman Senator is required to be one), an $825 stipend for the remainder of the 2010-2011 academic year was approved not once, but twice, as a motion to reconsider was introduce to enable the Senate to further explore the eligibility issue.

By this time, the pace was more than an hour behind, and it was looking to be a long night. Powell then surprisingly motioned to eliminate the scheduled discussion of the stipend model and all committee updates, save those of finance and restructuring committees, from the agenda. Though Sen. Grace Hochstatter noted that “We can’t decide anything tonight,” a number of senators still wanted to get the discussion started, and the discussion was shortened to ten minutes.

Before the discussion, Senate President Zachary Stark-MacMillan proposed a resolution creating a committee that would review requests for Over-Realized Fund money and make recommendations back to the full Senate. After a number of rapidly proposed and approved amendments to expand the committee, eliminate a proposed Executive contingent, and require a three-fifths vote of the full Senate to appropriate money from the ORF, the resolution was passed by unanimous acclimation. A committee was quickly formed consisting of Sen. James Dos Santos, Kristina Harding, Emma Newman, Stark-MacMillan, and Evan Thomas, and they will begin meeting next week.

The Senate was gaining speed now, and the already truncated discussion of the stipend model was even shorter than the time allotted. Powell proposed that an independent body consisting of representation from Senate, the Executive and outside the ASUO be formed and given binding decision-making ability to create a stipend model. Sen. Kaitlyn Lange expressed an interest in consulting those with “institutional memory,” specifically referencing former Senator and current Oregon Commentator Editor in Chief Lyzi Diamond among those she would like to involve.

After agreeing to revisit the issue in the near future, and dispensing with procedural officer and committee reports, the Senate adjourned at 10:50, exactly the time specified on the agenda.

Stats:

Meeting Duration: 230 minutes (2 recesses)

Money allocated from Surplus: $27,218

Not Present : Garcia

Departures: Altman (resigned); no Arrivals, ASUO Outreach Coordinator Brian Allen substituting for Vice President Arora.

Opinion:

I think the most impressive part of this little shindig wasn’t Senate’s willingness, almost eagerness, to restrict itself to a timeline, but its pickiness in regards to what it was willing to allocate funds for. GrEBES, CSSA and CHCSA all received smaller allotments than they requested due to questions about the efficacy of the proposed spending, mainly large PR expenditures which the senators deemed redundant, encouraging groups to use cheaper alternatives. Powell went as far to say, “Facebook ads, they’re incredibly cheap.”

Other areas were not immune to the Senate’s financial whittling. Sen. Chris Bocchicchio was skeptical of GrEBES lodging request, saying, “300 for both nights can be expensive.” These might seem like nitpicky points, and in some ways they are, but this nitpicking saved students $7,270 in one night. I’m usually not one to cheerlead for government (considering my employer), but I’ll give credit where it’s due: Nice job, guys.

However, the vote to pay the new Freshman Senator the same stipend as the rest of the senators was a little odd to me. This person can’t vote, won’t sit on any of the finance committees and will be hard-pressed to put in as much work as their colleagues, but are still entitled to the same amount of cash as the other members. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see ASUO Chief of Staff Ben Eckstein’s reaction to this, considering his stringent lobbying for increased Executive stipends before PFC two nights ago.  I sincerely hope this point comes up again in the planned further discussion of the stipend model, because there should be something approaching parity in terms of workload versus pay scale, and this move further throws that out of whack.

Lastly I’m very glad that Senate had the smarts to remove the Executive from the over-realized process. Not only is the Executive not designed to be the body that allocates funds, the fact that three of the five committee members are Executive appointments, and Stark-MacMillan could hardly be described as anti-Executive, I’m confident in saying that the needs, nay wants, nay whims of the Executive will be thoroughly represented during the allocation of the ORF.

My fingers crossed that this timeliness bit catches on, as it was refreshing to have a life outside the ASUO on a Wednesday. I wonder if there is any causal relationship between the speediness of the meeting and the lack of the usual Executive contingent (President Rousseau, Eckstein, and noted ASUO lurker former Political Director Robert D’Andrea). Time will tell, I suppose.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 04:25 by Rockne Andrew Roll and is filed under ASUO, Campus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.