Students brainstormed ways in which student body position pay could be more need-aware, during last week’s “spooky” Senate meeting. Though Senate has marked out this time for discussion of the planned raise in the Student Body Activities Fee, most comments focused on the issue of increasing student body position wages, a topic that Student Body Vice President Nick Fiore has stated Senate definitely wants to do and that is being specifically examined by the Wage Review Board.
Two hundred and twenty people responded to the Wage Review Board’s survey, which ended on Monday March 2. Of the 70 students who considered running for student body positions but decided not to, 30 decided not to because of financial reasons, according to Wage Review Board Member Kieran Hanrahan.
Though Senate has not voted on whether it will raise the fee, the majority of Senate has expressed that they intend to do so, in part because doing so now aligns with the precedent of raising the fee every three to five years. The last time the fee was raised was 2009, when it was raised about $30.
The discussion of the fee has mainly revolved around how the additional money should be used. Fiore stated in the previous meeting on raising the fee that Senate considers raising student body position wages to be a priority, in order to make them more accessible to students who need to work to be financially secure.
“We don’t want people’s financial circumstances to not allow them to engage in SB governance and be involved in the community,” Fiore reiterated during this meeting.
The fee funds Senate’s entire budget, with exception of the SOS program (which is funded of interest from the SB Endowment for Autonomy). This semester, $30,155 of the total budget of $207,555 — that’s 15% — goes to student body position wages.
Former Vice President Paul Messick said that when there was a discussion about increasing wages, many students argued that increasing wages could lead to people applying to positions for money rather than genuine interest in the position. However, he now believes Senate should try to have need-aware stipends, “especially given that the endowment for student body autonomy gives Senate the means to do need-aware or potentially allows for need-aware stipends,” Messick said.
Messick also cautioned that so long as student body positions are not eligible for Federal Work-Study, students on financial aid will have to work an additional job on top of their student body position in order to receive their entire financial aid package.
According to Fiore, however, college counsel looked at making student body positions eligible for Federal Work-Study in 2005, but concluded that, because it would require these positions to comply with Federal labor laws, it may not be compatible with student body positions.
Other possibilities of where this additional money could go are still being proposed. Former Senator Dwayne Okpaise said that if the SOS program is going to be a permanent program, it will need more money than is currently allocated. The program is current funded using interest from the student body endowment. This used to be around $300,000, however, Fiore announced that after consolidating several different piles on money the Senate has control of, they now have $500,000, which they expect will allow for greater returns and thus more money for the SOS program.
In the previous Senate meeting, Quest Editor Will Jones asked how the proposed increase in the fee would affect students’ financial aid, and Fiore said he was talking with the financial aid office to clarify that. This meeting, Fiore announced that the proposed increase would likely have very little effect on financial aid, given how small an amount of money it is, especially the manner in which tuition has been increasing.
“It would be shocking to see financial aid having to increase a lot to meet this need,” Fiore said.
Senator Kate Hilts has stated that Senate is considering an increase of the fee between 15% and 25%: to between $299 and $325 per year. Annual tuition has increased over $8,000 since 2009.
Toward the end of the discussion, several concerns about the transparency with regards to money senate spends were brought up. Bike Co-op Manager Mark Angeles suggested that Senate look into publishing all finance committee and Top 40 budgets, so all students could see how each organization is spending their money. Most of these budgets are published either on SIN or in the Quest, though it was clear from several students at the meeting that they could be made more accessible.
Angeles also suggested paying students who currently volunteer in positions that benefit the community as much or more than currently paid positions.
“Honor Council, for example — I don’t want to rag on them, I think they do a good job — but they handle like maybe two or three cases every year, whereas some institutions like Bike Co-op has people coming in every week …. and I would like to pay all my mechanics, but currently they are all volunteer, and that’s proportionally affecting more students,” Angeles said.
Committee Reports
The Student Opportunity Subsidy received 70 applications, according to Senator Galen Harrison. The program currently aims to provide stipends to fund students’ summer projects, hoping to fill gaps not covered by other grants available to Reed students.
AOD committee has added questions relevant to harm reduction efforts to the CORE survey — a national survey that examines AOD use on college campuses, giving them a metric for institutions to compare AOD use.
Senate approved the appointments of Gabe Richardson and Laura Dallogo as Griffin Editors and Kathryn Loucks and Erika Hurth to Election Czars.
Senator Grace Haley introduced the Steward program, a program out of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program that intends to have student volunteers present at SU dances to be available to intervene with any unwanted activity on dancefloors.