Author: Ryan Strong
Students may pay higher student fees next year as part of an Associated Students of Occidental (ASOC) senate proposal to raise the fees in order to better fund student activities on campus.
The proposal, enabled by the passage of an amendment to the ASOC Constitution last year that allows ASOC student body fees to be raised at the discretion of the senate, will include a small increase in student fees from their current rate of $139 per semester, according to the college’s website. Student fees have not increased at all in several years, despite inflation, more active clubs, increased demand from club sports, and the new TV station CatAList, according to Sophomore Senator and Chairman of the Student Body Fees Committee Sid Saravat.
Recently, the ASOC budget has been stretched thin in large part due to the ever-expanding expectations of a big-name, high-priced Springfest performer. Programming Board received just over $95,000 this year, and a huge chunk of that money went towards Springfest.
ASOC President Margeau Valteau (senior) supports the measure. She noted that while she did not last year due to concerns about the increasing cost of attending Occidental, researching other institutions and seeing the lack of funding for important student-led events changed her mind. ASOC research showed that Occidental has lower student body fees than almost all of its peer institutions, and Valteau believes that a small amount of additional money chipped in by everyone will enhance student life at the college greatly.
“If an increase is voted on by Senate, those fees will be allocated to our whole ASOC budget, so the Student Services budget and our budget that we use to allocate money to clubs and clubs sports will be increased,” Valteau said. “Basically, if the student body fees are increased, it will benefit the student body as a whole.”
Valteau is quick to note that ASOC is only considering a small increase to student fees.
“It is really important for student to know that if student body fees are increased, it will not be anything too significant because we do not want to burden students or their families,” she said.
Currently, the ASOC budget is divided by required annual spending that is not directly under the senate’s control and discretionary funding. Much of the required spending goes to student services through percentage allotments of the total budget. Bengal Bus, The Occidental Agency, CatAList, KOXY and The Occidental Weekly spend 27 percent of the budget for their work. Programming Board (14 percent), salaries for professional staff (15 percent) and the Student Activity Center (13 percent) take up an even larger chunk of the budget, though the Student Activity Center basically pays for itself through the income is raises, according to the Senate’s budget 2012-2013 budget proposal provided by ASOC. With small miscellaneous required expenses such as ASOC Senate operations expenses and a 2.55 percent mandatory reserve taken into account, only 22 percent of the ASOC budget is left for discretionary spending.
Demand for the discretionary spending is high and divided into multiple different funds with clubs and sports clubs getting around $30,000 each. Smaller discretionary funds for beautification, cultural graduations and ASOC leadership, and nearly $65,000 for senate discretionary spending round out that part of the budget.
Saravat said that club allocation and sports club allocation are especially taxed with clubs often not receiving full funding for worthwhile events and sports club members paying huge sums of their own money or spending hours of their time fundraising.
“It is disheartening to turn people down with good proposals,” Saravat said.
ASOC Vice President for Finance Hailey Moran said she will support the recommendation of the student body fees committee.
“In the past few months, they have been diligently researching peer institutions, student services budgets and needs, the greater ASOC budget’s available and unavailable funds, and student input and concerns,” Moran said. “I trust that they will lead Senate into making a decision that best affects the student body as a whole.”
Moran has spent the year working to make the ASOC funding process easier, more efficient and fairer for students requesting funds, putting in place a structure that can ensure students get the most out of any potential raise in student body fees.
“One of my most proud accomplishments is the installation of the Event Evaluation Form,” Moran said. “This form was created to provide the Funding Committee with feedback on the success of clubs’ past events and help clubs evaluate their event programming.”
The project was part of an aggressive campaign by ASOC this year to make student government more transparent and responsive to students. Valteau, for example, has arranged for the next ASOC President to have a “Presidential Room,” putting them in a location on campus and more available to talk to students and attend college functions.
The potential increase in student fees would also raise the budgets of all the organizations that receive non-discretionary spending based on their percentage allotment. According to Valteau, multiple organizations have asked for more money.
“Most of the Student Service managers expressed that they would really benefit from a budget increase, and they also informed us that many of their staff are unpaid for all the work they do,” Valteau said.
Remaining funds would help offset the cost of Experimental College, the major initiative passed by ASOC this year and recently approved by the faculty, according to Valteau. The new program allows students to teach classes in areas of interest and expertise that may not be offered through the college’s regular curriculum.
“This is something that Senate has been working on for about two years now, and we are so happy that it has made significant progress,” Valteau said. “We are excited to move forward with this program.”
The debate and vote over student fee increases will happen concurrently with elections that will decide next year’s student government, which will have a large say in implementation of these changes. Valteau is hoping for healthy competition this year and strong turnout.
“In past years we have struggled with the amount of students that vote and run for ASOC elections and it’s disappointing because it takes away from Oxy’s democratic process,” Valteau said. “Election’s Chair, Ben Poor, and I will be trying our best to get more people involved in ASOC elections this year.”
Voting opens on Monday, April 22 and goes until Friday, April 26. According to Saravat, a senate vote on student body fees is expected to take place this Monday with senators asking for feedback from their constituents throughout this week.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
