The Wage Review Board, consisting of Mitchell Linegar and Kieran Hanrahan, recently released their report with recommendations about how to adjust the wages of appointed student body positions. The WRB recommended two options, both of which include doubling the amount of money the Senate currently spends on wages, according to their report.
In their report, the WRB writes, “The first [recommended option] is a need-based grant system that would raise the amount of money Senate spends on base stipends from $30,000 to $40,000 a semester and also add an additional $15,000 in need-based grant awards… Our second option simply raises Senate’s total spending on stipends to $55,000 a semester while focusing on making those positions that are grant-eligible under the grant system (i.e. important student governance roles) financially accessible.”
At last week’s Senate meetings, students voiced concerns about the logistical difficulties of implementing a need-based grant program, gave support for higher wages, and raised questions about how fluctuations in enrollment and the student body fee would affect raising wages.
On March 12, the Senate voted 7-1 to approve a motion to increase the annual student body fee by $40. This raise was in anticipation of the WRB’s recommendations to increase wage spending.
President Ashlin Hatch ‘17 said that Senate, “thinks that we would like to implement a grant system, but it is a really hard thing to do. We would like to make the commitment to create a grant system, but for now we may just raise wages across the board.”
The WRB emphasized in their report, “the recommendations of this report are just that: recommendations… Wage Review Board is a technocratic institution while Senate is a democratic one, and that the wage adjustments Senate ultimately enacts will be the result of debate and collaboration between Senate, the Wage Review Board, and the broader student body.”
These debates and collaboration will continue at the regularly scheduled Senate meetings, Thursday at 4:15 pm in the Student Union.