Expected budget cuts for the 2014-2015 academic year have now become a reality for the University of Oregon. Student groups won’t be financially growing as much as they’d like to next year, but all the student jobs that could have been affected by the cuts are poised to survive.
Committees such as the EMU Board and the Department Finance Committee allocate funds to student services like the EMU food services, ticketing services, Holden Leadership Center and the Mills International Center. The EMU Board and DFC only have a 3.5 percent increase this year, which was the percent increase in incidental fee growth as capped by a recommendation from UO administration. The incidental fee is a fee that every UO student pays, and students will be paying less of it next year, but in return all incidental fee-funded operations have been forced to tighten their budgets.
The tightening was expected to affect student employees, but at this point, all the student jobs seem to be safe.
“The departments were prepared for the 3.5 percent increase because in November that’s what we made our benchmark,” ASUO Senator and EMU Board member Quinn MacLean said. “There’s going to be some shifting around, but we’ve been able to manage giving the departments the money they need for their employees next year.”
To keep jobs, MacLean is expecting the overall ASUO budget to be at a 4.5 percent increase. The DFC’s increase is slightly above the 3.5 line as well with their expected increase being at 3.66 percent. The DFC’s slight increase comes from funding the Mills International Center, which is adding a few paid positions in order to keep with the Center’s high demand.
“The Mills added a bunch of positions because the usage of the center has been pretty high. For us to give them just the bare minimum would have led to cutting jobs,” ASUO Senator and DFC member Ryan Fritsen, said. “It was difficult from a larger standpoint, but we needed to take into account the future of the organization.”
The EMU Board and the DFC are able to afford the extra fiscal leg room due to an expected zero percent increase for the Program Finance Committee budget.
“It’ll be at about zero percent,” ASUO Senator and PFC member Taylor Allison, said. “Some programs will get decreases for lack of spending, and then 5 groups will be getting just their service level increases, but those have already been accounted for.”
The Women’s Center, Men’s Center, ASUO office, Multicultural Center and Safe Ride are the groups who are getting service level increases which Allison says will be anywhere between 3 and 5 percent, depending on the group.
The Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee have arguably been cutting off the highest increases out of all the committees. The Athletics department requested a 10 percent increase, but ACFC only approved 3 percent, and OSPIRG was all together defunded by ACFC during their budget hearing.
“OSPIRG wasn’t happy with the amount, and I can understand why they’re upset, but at the end of the day it wasn’t our fault that they were defunded. We did all we could do, and I think we made a very responsible decision,” ASUO Senator and ACFC member Josh Losner, said. “It’s a tough year to do this because of the cuts, but unfortunately everyone is making sacrifices. I’m very glad we’re being fiscally responsible.”
After a few more budget hearings this week, all the committees are expected to reach their 3.5 percent quota, with student jobs intact. How the budget cut will affect the services that all the groups provided is still uncertain.