Long meetings, unexpected additions, contentious discussions. The student government has been at work the first half of the Winter term, trying to set fees for student-funded programs for next year. Now, in week four, the end may finally be in sight.
As of the last Associated Students of Oregon State University Senate meeting on Tuesday, ASOSU has passed five of the six student fee bills and will be sent to student government President Masha Mogylevsky to sign.
These decisions determine how much OSU students will pay in incidental fees next year and how millions of dollars are distributed among student services, with the student government’s own budget still unresolved.
Of the bills passed were for the Basic Needs Center, the Performing Arts, the Recreational Sports and Clubs, Student Experiences and Engagement and the newly coined SafeRide, Advocacy, and Legal Services — formerly a part of ASOSU.
The Basic Need Center’s bill set student fees for the unit at $23.09 per student per term, a 5.97% increase from last year. There was conversation about whether or not spending for the BNC program Mealbux, which helps students buy meals on campus, was efficient enough. However, Mogylevsky said they were in favor of passing the bill “as is” and would consider vetoing the bill if the fee was lowered significantly.
The Performing Arts student fee was set at $10.65 per student per term, a 1.72% increase from last year. During the conversation on the bill, Student Fee Committee Chair Saegis Abbott noted the PA’s equipment reserve’s fund keeps building up.
In response, SFC Performing Arts Liaison Isabelle Bare said the reserve was necessary for things such as grand pianos, uniforms and marching band instruments which tend to wear out as they are exposed to weather. The consensus of the Senate was that the increase was reasonable, and Mogylevsky said they “felt comfortable” with the bill.
After a substantial change during mediation — where Senate and SFC members and unit representatives negotiate changes to proposed budgets — the student bill for SEE was set to $48.22 per student per term. $45.12 of the cost is allocated for operations and the remaining $3.07 is for an increase in student club grants.
SEE originally asked for a $2.50 raise to club grants, however the Senate agreed with the mediation committee’s recommendation of taking 57 cents from other parts of SEE and adding it to the club grants.
According to Senator Theon Abbott, the students he’s spoken to overwhelmingly want to see more funding for clubs, and that students are “surprised” SEE does more than just student clubs.
Senator Abbott said he wanted to see more substantial cuts to SEE, not just a reallocation of funds. According to Abbott, other parts of SEE, like Orange Media Network — which The Daily Barometer is a part of — don’t garner enough student engagement for their costs.
The Recreational Sports fee was set to $9.30 per student per term, a 7.7% increase from last year. Recreational Sports had initially come to the Senate with the wrong numbers for their bill. However, during mediation, it was determined that the unit’s Student Fee Committee Liaison position was being double funded, once by student fees and once from a University Budget Committee fund.
The Recreational Sports representatives suggested this could be fixed by funding the position entirely through the UBC fund, which would lower how much students would have to pay. After seeing an updated breakdown of the unit’s costs, the mediation agreed and the Senate later passed the bill.
The SALS student fee was set to $21.63 per student per term. Cuts were made to the SALS bill during mediation, including the removal of a decision package that would fund more student office hours in the Office of Advocacy, one of the three parts of the new unit.
Bare said the decision packages were there in order to keep SALS operating at its current level and any cuts would impede future operations for the unit. However, Senator Abbott responded that it was not the job of the ASOSU Senate to dictate the wills of future students, and instead suggested more cuts to the unit.
The only bill that has not passed the Senate yet is for the student government itself. However, after two mediation sessions, the ASOSU bill was amended and will be voted on at next week’s Senate meeting. If the bill passes, it will set the student fee for ASOSU at $48.28 per student per term, however the numbers for the unit remain a major point of contention.
The next Senate meeting will be on Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. in the Memorial Union Room 206 and on Zoom.
A full flow chart of the student fee process can be found on the SFC web page.
