SFC to decide stipend increases

With approval from the Student Fee Committee, Portland State student groups will receive the 6 percent increase that the Educational Stipend Policy Committee proposed this August.

In an e-mail to members of the Stipend Committee and the Associated Students of Portland State University, Amiee Shattuck outlined the reasoning behind why student groups will receive the proposed increase.

The committee was charged with revising the stipend policy for groups funded by the SFC and proposed several changes, including a 5 percent increase for all individual stipend positions. The committee also decided to raise the stipend cap for ASPSU from about $131,000 to $200,000.

Shattuck, the director of Student Activities and Leadership, wrote that while the proposal from the committee specified that the 5 percent increase to individual stipend levels for student positions would not be effective until the 2009-10 academic year, there is no timeline for the 6 percent increase.

Shattuck, a member of the stipend committee, wrote that since no timeline exists, groups “may propose to the SFC new positions that would bring them up to the revised stipend cap, but they must use the original stipend levels as a basis for their proposal.”

Michelle Toppe, the dean of students, has signed off on the procedure for student groups approaching the SFC about the creation of new jobs, said Shattuck.