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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1975)
Oregon daily emerald An Independent Student Newspaper _Uil_ Vol. 76, No. Eugene, OregonFriday, Feb. 21, 1975 Executive rejects BSU budget request By RANDY SHUTS Of the Emerald The ASUO Executive last night rejected the Black Student Union’s (BSU) proposed budget for next year and ordered the BSU to resubmit a budget if the group is to re ceive incidental fees funding next year. The ASUO Budget Committee said the $16,000-plus proposal did net meet the executive's incidental fee budget criteria because it did not spell out long-term BSU goals and did not delineate sufficient justifi cation for its expenditures. The Executive committee is working on its budget recom mendations for the Incidental Fee Commit tee. The BSU saw the rejection as something more than a failure to live up to criteria. “This was a devised administratively conceived plot to do away with orgainza tions of which the ASUO Executive has a disdainful view,” said Cecil Ashley, BSU office manager. BSU Vice-pres. Philip An derson added, "They are trying to keep the BSU from going to the goal that blacks on campus want to go to.” ASUO President Robert Liberty, how ever, said that one of the proposal’s prob lems wets that it did not define any goals. “We have to have a conception of what we’re working towards. Right now we just go from term to term, and year to year with long-term view," Liberty said. “I am amazed at the audacity of programs that turn in budgets which would flunk as mid-terms." During the heated hearing, the executive committee questioned many of the items in the BSU request which is over 200 per cent larger than last year’s BSU allocation. Among the items of which the executive sought clarification, were a $5,000 request for black speakers, a $1,000 request for a black fashion show, a $5,000 request for a black arts festival, a $600 request for trans portation, a $140 request for postage and another $1,000 request for black poetry, essay and art display contests. The executive said they needed more justification for the expenditures before making any decision on the budget. "We’re not going to hand out over $16,000 without knowing where every dime is going," said Jim Genger, ASUO comptroller and budget committee member. The BSU representatives said this de mand was unreasonable. "We re not soothsayers,’’ said BSU Pres. Willie Branch. “How can you ask for such definite things when we don't even know if we re going to have the money to do them?” Ashley characterized the executive's re jection as an attack on the BSU. “It was an intentional institutional ploy to strike at the BSU where it would do tiie organization the most harm,” Ashley said. Liberty, however, said that the criteria applied to all ASUO programs and that the program directors were given notice of the budget criteria in fall term. “We bent over backwards to notify everybody of what we were doing,” Liberty claimed. They had several months to respond.' Liberty said the MEChA (Ohicano Stu dent Union), the Student and University Af fairs Board (SUAB) and the ASUO housing office budgets also were rejected on grounds of insufficient justification. The BSU plans to resubmit a budget to the ex ecutive. It will be penalized 1 -per cent a day off next year’s budget for every day until it is resubmitted. The new U presents... J m 1. Phrto by Greg Clark If you happened to wander through the lobby of the new EMU addition Thursday, perhaps you noticed what seemed to be a senior citizen version of the Saturday Market. Actually it was the senior citizen crafts fair put on by members of the Celeste Campbell Center. Members displayed their wares and demon strated some of their crafts. m work-study allocations terminated By DENNIS PFAFF Of the Emerald The Office of Student Financial Aids seems to have been on the verge of hand ing out too much work-study money too fast. The director of the office, Walter Freauff, told the Emerald Wednesday, “If we’d con tinued our current spending rate we would have had a $15 to $20,000 over expenditure by June 30.” Freauff made his remarks by way of ex plaining why the Financial Aids office term inated the allocation of additional work study money last week. In this Issue... ASUO proposes AD cutback In an effort to keep next year’s ASUO budget in line and because of the decreases in student seating, the executive has proposed a cutback in ASUO funds that go to the athletic department. Page 3 ‘Faces in a crowd’ Chester Trabucco, freshman class president is interviewed this week in the column by Mary Don of the Emerald. Page 5 Students warned: If overseas studies are in your plans for this summer you should beware of the "fly by night” charter companies and disreputable foreign study programs. Page 6 Co-ed housing The push for co-ed dorms on cam pus seems to be a continual en deavor. However, some residents of Bean Hall feel they have a simple solution to the question. Page 7 But he also cautioned against people at University, who are now on the work-study program, being concerned about the situa tion. Freauff said the money which is now committed will be paid out to students, but that no new funds will be allocated unless or until new money comes into the program. The director said the situation occurred because the Financial Aids Office regularly over-commits available work-study money because many students (Freauff estimates around 25 per cent) do not use the money that is awarded to them. Tnis means, Freauff said, that in order to be sure of expending all the money availa ble to the office, more money must be ini tially awarded to students than is in fact available. This year, however, more students than expected actually used the money which was awarded to them. The situation this year is an about-face of last year's, when there was about half the money coming into the Office than this year. Freauff said during the year 1973-74, only about $421,000 in Federal matching funds came into the University to be ex panded in the work-study program. This year, however, over $900,000 was for warded to the school. In the work-study program, federal money accounts for 80 per cent of a student’s salary, while his employer (which must be a public or non-profit agency) picks up the other 20 per cent. Ironically, Freauff said, “Last year we had trouble getting hd of all the money we had. We were afraid we’d have to hand some of it back to the feds.” Freauff said part of the problem in es timating how much work-study money to commit to students is the fact, "We only have one end of the rope." He said the only part of the financing controlled by the Fi nancial Aids Office is the federal money. Variables which need to be taken into account indude the number of students who apply for the aid and how many employers the Office can come up with. Freauff said the reason he did not want to publicly announce the fact that new work-study funds would not be available was because he did not want to “panic” those students already involved in the prog ram into thinking their paychecks wouldn’t be met. He repeatedly stated that this was not the case and those people on the prog ram now will continue with no pay cut. Freauff said he has applied to the federal government's department of Health, Edu cation and Welfare for a $150,000 supple mental grant. He was not optimistic that the money would be granted, however. “The most we can reasonably expect,” he said, “would be about ten per cent of that amount," or about $15,000. Another option open to the Office is trying to get some of the money which is usually left over from the programs at other schools. Also, by the end of the year more stu dents may have stopped their involvement in the program, thus offsetting any over allocation.
