A second major blow has struck student organizations in the wake of this year’s budget cuts.
In 2009, the price of copies in the Student Activities and Leadership Programs’ office rose to 5 cents a page—an increase of 2 cents from last year.
SALP sees the difference in cost as a necessity, but Portland State student organizations fail to see the change in the same light.
The SALP office verified that last year the cost to copy a single-sided sheet was 3 cents a page. This year the same copy costs 5 cents. In addition, a double-sided copy, with print on both sides, cost 5 cents last year—that price went up 3 cents to 8 cents a copy.
Director of SALP Aimee Shattuck asserts that the rise in cost came as a result of underfunding for the copier last year, thus SALP was not breaking even on the cost of the copier.
Shattuck also emphasized that SALP charges themselves the same fee that student groups are charged.
Shattuck explained that in the past year SALP was losing money due to the cheaper pricing of copies. SALP gains no profit or revenue from the cost of copies, rather the money spent on copies goes toward maintenance, toner, ink, paper and the actual rental of the copier.
If the price were misrepresentative, Shattuck stated, SALP would need to charge in student fees to make up for the deficit.
“Instead of charging all students for copies, we are charging student groups for how much it actually costs,” Shattuck said.
According to the proposed budget plan for 2009–10 as stated on the SALP Advisory Board’s Web site, $4,200 of the $24,691 reserved for the student organizations’ subsidies and fees is allotted to copies.
If that money were used solely for single-sided copies throughout the year, that money would only account for 84,000 copies or approximately 571 per group for the entire year.
Paying for additional copies would have to come from another part of the student group’s budget or the advisor and members’ wallets. On the other hand, the SALP office is given $1,920 for copies, or 38,400 single-sided sheets a year.
Shattuck acknowledged that student groups utilize the copier all the time, printing fliers for events, advertisements, daily agendas and schedules.
In keeping with Shattuck’s statement, a representative for the multicultural group Las Mujeres noted that ample copies were incredibly important to the functionality of a student organization.
Las Mujeres prints out copies for events and fliers on a regular basis, but does not utilize the copier in SALP’s office. The student group has their own copier in their office, but Las Mujeres’ Marisela Rodriguez confirmed that the student group having and maintaining their own copier did not ease budget constraints.
“Either way it still takes out of the budget,” Rodriguez said.