Editorial – OSPIRG: Not wanted

OSPIRG needs to take its hand out of the Portland State student fee cookie jar.

Declaring that OSPIRG is not a student group is a good first step, but there are many more steps necessary to distance the organization from our student fees.

OSPIRG has long used student fee money from Portland State and other universities as an endless pot of gold, which they believe they will never be caught stealing from.

During next year’s allocation, the Student Fee Committee (SFC) must cut funding to OSPIRG. We cannot continue to outsource $128,000 of student fee money to an organization that gives no record of how the money is spent.

And it is true that there is little record of how PSU student fees are spent by OSPIRG. The money allocated to OSPIRG from the SFC is sent to them in lump sums four times a year.

Unlike every other student group, they are not required to list, by line item, how they spend the money or what they spend it on.

Members of the organization say that a board of PSU students determines how the money is spent here and what it is spent on. They say that another board of students-with just a few students from PSU-determine how money is spent on a statewide level.

What’s wrong with that? There is no way to know if it’s true. There were no students directly involved with the program last spring, and involvement so far this term is minimal. For about three months last year, OSPIRG had no campus organizer at PSU.

OSPIRG advocates for issues that few can disagree with. Like so many of us, they want progressive change. They want more attention paid to global warming and the cost of education. They have even helped enact some change at PSU, from getting people to use energy-efficient light bulbs to bringing in more funding.

But it is an absolute disservice to frivolously give $128,000 in student fees to a group that has shown no substantial student participation and no greater service than to that of its parent organization.

Our student fees are used by OSPIRG as a cushion that benefits few students with a small amount of leadership experience. Next year, the SFC needs to make a decision that reflects the goals and purpose behind student fees: stop funding OSPIRG.