SFC releases funds for OSA

The Student Fee Committee released funds today that it had held in designated reserve for six months.

The funds, totaling approximately $104,000, will pay membership dues to the Oregon Student Association for the 2008-09 academic year.

The SFC placed the funds in designated reserve in January in an attempt to force OSA to adopt a proposal put forth by former Associated Students of Portland State University President Rudy Soto and his senior policy advisor Ryan Klute.

Soto asked the SFC to make the decision after OSA was reluctant to approve the proposal he and Klute had drafted. The funds were intended to remain in reserve until OSA adopted the proposal.

Soto’s proposal would effectively give larger Oregon schools, such as PSU, Oregon and Oregon State, more power than the rest of the member schools. OSA has nine member schools from across the state.

“I am of the belief that the Oregon Student Association’s strength is in its unity,” said Kyle Cady, ASPSU vice president.

Cady, who was on the OSA staff in 2006, and OSA Executive Director Tamara Henderson, gave a presentation today to the SFC about the background of the OSA and research on how other schools have been affected by proposals such as the one Soto and Klute presented.

Following the presentation, the SFC unanimously voted in favor of releasing the funds. This decision comes six months after the SFC’s unanimous decision that put the funds in reserve.

In addition to be used for membership dues, the released funds will pay for other costs pertaining to the organization that lobbies for student issues to the Oregon legislature every other year. The OSA was widely heralded in 2007 for helping obtain hundreds of millions more in funding for higher education in Oregon.

Soto admitted the proposal given to the OSA board had its faults, but says at the core it had some good ideas. OSA has voted to form a committee that will examine the proposal and do further research on it, he said.

“I think we worked out a good compromise,” Soto said.

At press time, both Henderson and SFC Chair Amanda Newberg were unavailable for comment.