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The top officers of the DU student government will be compensated next year after a 15-3 vote at Tuesday’s meeting of the USG that also saw the end to USG funds of student media.
The three top officers – president, vice president and president pro tempore, each will receive $500 per quarter, or $1,500 annually, for textbooks and other course materials.
But not all senators agree. Junior Dillon Doyle, on-campus senator, Tim Healy, HRTM senator, and Andrew Brown, performing arts senator, voted to reallocated those funds to other student initiatives.
“I was discouraged and confused to see a proposal for our executive scholarship at the expense of greater student initiatives,” Doyle said in Tuesday’s meeting. “I think $4,500 could fund fairly large student organizations. I think it could fund quite a few, a handful. I think $4,500 could bring hundreds more students on beginner Alpine Club trips. While I’m not trying to diminish the work the USG Executive Branch seeks to accomplish, I’m here to say that this is wrong and a disservice to our constituents.”
Healy said that this could cause students to run just for the money and not for the interest. But other USG senators and executives, such as Javier Ogaz, president pro tempore, think the scholarship will establish greater incentive and will hold executives more accountable.
Another spirited discussion followed on ending funding from the student activity fee of student media. In a departure from prior years, allocations for student media, including the Clarion, will no longer receive between $25,000 and $50,000 from the student activity fee, but instead by a special appropriation through the contingency fund operated through Student Life, which oversees all student activities.
These monies fund the Clarion, KVDU, The Spit Valve, the latter is a humor quarterly, and the annual Foothills Literary Journal, which this year, will be distributed during May Days.
Student media, in addition, has a separate account funded by money it earns from advertising.
“This will insure a free and independent media that is not subject to the views of the university, of the Undergraduate Student Government or of certain elected positions on campus,” said Antoine Perretta, student body president. “It’ll ensure SMB [Student Media Board] has it’s own autonomy to function free from the restraints we may or may not try to put on [campus media].”
Defending the funding of USG executives, Perretta said, “There’s a national trend to compensate elected officials at the student government level but it’s the hardest thing to implement. The goal is for people who aren’t that financially well-off to run for office.”
The allocations come from the $1.4 million student activity fee that all full-time undergraduates pay. The largest percentage of that money, $456,000, pays for the RTD pass that all students receive.
Another $200,000 is distributed to student organizations for their activities. The remaining money, amounting to $754,000 is allotted to recurring extra curricular activities for all students – DU Programming Board, club sports, student government, Greek Life and the campus shuttle, among others.
DUPB, which sponsors films and major events such May Days and Winter Carnival, will receive $200,000 the same amount it received last year. Another $125,000 goes to club sports, which includes Alpine Club. Alpine Club, the largest club on campus, received an additional $12,000 of funding for next year, while club sports gets a net increase of $6,000. The Alpine Club was moved last year to club sports because it sponsors activities that might place a student at risk for injury, like a sporting event.
The remaining $200,000 will be distributed to various student organizations that petition for funds.
The complete budget can be found below.
