At a meeting last Friday, the Student Fee Committee ruled to increase the individual stipend levels 5 percent for all student groups except for the SFC and Associated Students of Portland State University, whose raises range from 1 percent to 19 percent. ASPSU requested $47,060 from the SFC to fund stipend increases and the Student Senate, Elections Board and Judicial Board, three groups within student government that have been previously unpaid.
Student stipends raised across the board
At a meeting last Friday, the Student Fee Committee ruled to increase the individual stipend levels 5 percent for all student groups except for the SFC and Associated Students of Portland State University, whose raises range from 1 percent to 19 percent.
ASPSU requested $47,060 from the SFC to fund stipend increases and the Student Senate, Elections Board and Judicial Board, three groups within student government that have been previously unpaid.
Amiee Shattuck, director of Student Activities and Leadership Programs, said the 5 percent individual stipend increases, which will be paid for with reserve student fees, were not supposed to go into effect until the academic year 2009-10.
Shattuck served on the Educational Stipend Review Committee, which is charged with reviewing the stipend policy and proposing changes about every two years. The committee met 12 times from April to July of this year.
Shattuck said that in the final version of the stipend committee’s proposed changes it was stated that the 5 percent increases would not be effective until academic year 2009-10.
The General Student Affairs Committee, the body that must sign off on the revisions, approved the stipend committee’s proposed policy without making any changes, Shattuck said.
SFC Chair Aimeera Flint and ASPSU President Hannah Fisher, who were both on the stipend committee, said they had a different understanding of when the increases were supposed to take effect.
“We were under the impression it would take place in fiscal year ’08-09,” Fisher said. “All of a sudden there was a different policy than what we thought.”
Fisher said throughout the proceedings that ASPSU’s intent was to make it fair to all students, not just an underpaid student government.
This thought was echoed at last Friday’s meeting by Tanja Miljevic, vice chair of the SFC. Approving raises for ASPSU and the SFC and no other groups would be exclusionary and reflect badly on the student body, she said.
Flint said she thought that the comment in the final version of the stipend committee’s proposed changes, which stated the increases would occur in academic year 2009-10, was a footnote, causing some confusion with when the increases would indeed take effect.
The 5 percent individual stipend increase for all student groups totals $32,939, according to the SFC meeting minutes. The combined amounts from the student group increases and ASPSU request totals $79,999, which will come out of the student fee reserve fund, Fisher said.
Last Friday, ASPSU asked the SFC to approve the $47,060 request, Fisher said, which was available because under the revised stipend policy the group had not met its stipend cap.
Earlier this year, the stipend committee increased ASPSU’s stipend cap–a budget ceiling for total stipend amounts that each SFC-funded student group has to pay its members–from $131,923 to $200,000.
Shattuck said Fisher and ASPSU Vice President Kyle Cady told the stipend committee that the cap increase was necessary to pay the senate, J-Board and E-Board, but failed to mention that the funds would also be used to increase the salaries of existing positions.
“I don’t remember them ever talking about giving raises to executive staff members during the stipend committee meetings,” Shattuck said.
Fisher said she explained that some of the money from the increased stipend cap would be used to pay for increases to salaries for ASPSU executive staff members and the SFC.
Also, Fisher said she presented a memo to Michele Toppe, interim dean of students, which stated she intended to increase the salaries of some student government members due to cost of living increases.
Fisher also said that she and others from ASPSU met with Toppe and Domanic Thomas, assistant director of SALP, at a SFC meeting Sept. 19. At the meeting, Toppe stated that the 5 percent increase would effect all current student stipend positions, according to official meeting minutes.
��-Additional reporting by Steve Haske and Nathan Hellman
STIPEND BREAKDOWN:
SFC chair:Original stipend amount: $750Revised stipend amount: $850Percentage raised: 11.76 percent
SFC vice chair:Original stipend amount: $525Revised stipend amount: $650Percentage raised: 19.23 percent
SFC members:Original stipend amount: $525Revised stipend amount: $650Percentage raised: 12.5 percent
ASPSU executive staff:Original stipend amount: $550Revised stipend amount: $600Percentage raised: 8.33 percent
ASPSU vice president:Original stipend amount: $750Revised stipend amount: $850Percentage raised: 11.76 percent
ASPSU president:Original stipend amount: $940Revised stipend amount: $950Percentage raised: 1 percent
