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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 30, 1983)
Discrimination charge holds up OSPIRG funds see page 3 Oregon daily emerald Thursday, June 30, 1983 Eugene, Oregon Volume 85. Number 4 OSPIRG hires professional administrators By Jim Moore 01 the Emerald With a fiscal year 1983-84 budget $30,000 greater than current funding, OSPIRG has had to decide where to put their additional bucks — and about 60 percent of the money will go toward professional staff. The final decision must still be approved by the executive council, but Amy Gredler, chairer of the local board of directors, says the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group's budget will probably be split between hiring a pro fessional staff and working on issues as the state board deems necessary. "The importance of a pro fessional staff cannot be overlooked," Gredler says. “They provide the know-how and the continuity because students sometimes come in and out. "PIRG uses professionals in conjunction with students. Students have a lot of time, a lot of ability and a lot of resources that can be used to their own benefit, with the help of professionals.” She says OSPIRG has hired an executive director who will start work Aug. 1 and plans to hire three staff organizers and one or two issue specialists. Tom Novick, the current assistant director of the New York PIRG, is the new ex ecutive director and Gredler says she is excited about working with him “We were looking for so meone with previous PIRG ex perience because this is a very important year for OSPIRG," says Gredler, citing the group's intention to broaden its statewide support. Novick has been the chair of the New York PIRG, chair of the national PIRG and was in strumental in increasing the NYPIRG budget to its current level of $2.5 million, according to Gredler. She says his presence will directly benefit students because he has many skills he can teach and she expects him to come up with “a better developed internship program.” Besides increasing the op portunity for hands-on ex perience, Gredler says Novick’s expertise at organiz ing will be used in the next year. Amy Gredler, chair of the OSPIRG local board of directors, says the group's budget will be split between hiring a staff and working on issues. “There is, and Ihere's going to be, a growing emphasis on organizing,” Gredler says. She believes OSPIRG has a large student base, and points to the vote at the University and occurrences at the other two state chapters to support her claim. OSPIRG's funding increase came in April, when University students voted, by a substan tial margin, to increase in cidental fees in order to raise approximately $39,061 to be spent by the local chapter of OSPIRG. Now, with the July 1 start of fiscal year 1984 rapidly ap Continued on Page 3 Hult tickets raised 25 cents As of Friday, tickets for shows at the Hult Center for the Perfor ming Arts will cost 25 cents more. Earlier this week, the city council unanimously approved an increase in the center's patron user fee from 25 to 50 cents, a move which is expected to raise about $69,000 toward paying a $563,000 deficit. Although the increase will be implemented Friday, it won’t af fect ticket prices for shows such as Chuck Mangione, July 12, or any other July show. Tickets printed for shows after the August 9 Helen Reddy performance will charge the ad ditional fee. Tickets already printed and on sale will include only the original 25-cent fee. Photo by Mark Pynes Senate approves $562 million higher ed budget By Debbie Howlett Of tha Emerald The Oregon Senate approved higher education’s $562 million budget Tues day morning with a 26-3 vote. The budget funds Oregon’s public colleges and universities for the next two years. Senate approval came after the Joint Ways and Means Committee pared $21 million from Gov. Vic Atiyeh’s budget recommendation, and after approval by the Oregon House of Representatives. The next step in the legislative process is to send the budget, House Bill 5007, to Atiyeh who should sign the bill into law sometime next week, according to legislative sources. “I don’t think there's any question but (Atiyeh) will sign it, unless there’s a problem with revenue.” said Bill Bar rows, legislative fiscal officer for the Ways and Means Committee. The budget, which includes a tuition freeze at all institutions and $4 million to be funneled into a university-private sector joint economic development program, has been termed a “maintenance” budget by University Pres. Paul Olum. The budget hands higher education an increase of about 17 percent, slight ly less than Atiyeh’s recommended 20 percent raise over actual spending from the past biennium. When Atiyeh’s recommendations were made public, Olum said the budget was a step in the right direc tion, but that the budget, without any real increase, was more a restoration of a budget that has taken an ample share of cuts and reductions. Some of the Senators didn’t view the budget in that light. “I had problems with this budget, primarly because we haven’t got enough money to legislate these things,” said Sen. Jim Simmons, R Tigard, one of the three “no” votes Simmons said he’s made a standard practice of voting “no” on most budgets with anything more than modest increases because of the state’s unresolved revenue situation. “I see (the vote) as being tantamount to total agreement,” said Sen. Mike Thorne, D-Pendleton, who carried the bill on the Senate floor. “We need to do more to encourage enrollment,” he said. But Barrows intimated that the higher ed budget could be doing a balancing act on a political fulcrum. “There might be something the Senate or House is doing...,” Barrows said. “Don’t count out the chance he (Atiyeh) might find some political ad vantage in (vetoing the budget).” When asked if the higher ed budget might be used as political leverage in the sticky sales tax issue the Senate is now dealing with, Barrows replied, "The sales tax, and other things.” "Fortunately that is not the case,” Thorne countered. “That is one of the reasons we wanted to get (the budget) through the House and Senate quickly, so it couldn’t be used as a hostage for some tax dispute. “It’s always a possibility,” Thorne said. "I’d heard rumours it might hap pen. Fortunately, that is not the case.” Barrows remains slightly pessimistic. “These people are still politicians."
