The Green Initiative Fund faltering

A $5 fee passed by students last year for green projects has yet to go into effect, and the future of the fee and the projects it was intended to fund are in question.

Students passed a referendum during the spring 2009 student government election to pay an additional $5 student fee. The proceeds were supposed to pay for a revolving loan fund for green projects and a universal transportation pass for students, among other projects.

Both students and administrators working on The Green Initiative Fund, or TGIF, expressed confusion over the funding source and how the fund would be administered.

“In the beginning [we] all [were] excited by it and thought student funding would be the best,” said Heather Spalding, a 2009 Portland State graduate who is now the sustainability leadership and outreach coordinator for Student Affairs.

The referendum was vaguely worded, which led some people to believe that the $5 fee would be charged directly to students, but others thought that the money would be taken from the existing Student Fee Committee budget at the calculation of $5 per student.

The question of where money would be deposited without any infrastructure in place to distribute the fund to specific projects has also yet to be answered.

Noelle Studer-Spevak, sustainability coordinator for Finance and Administration, said the planning for green funding must include “what” and “how.” She said it is very difficult to establish new fees and many questions must be answered before it can be implemented.

Brendan Castricano, former ASPSU senator and Sustainability Advisory Council member who resigned from the Senate in January, formed a Senate campaign last year for TGIF, which he hoped would be used to fund energy-efficiency projects, the hiring of an energy manager, special green projects with small-scale funding and a small subsidy for a universal transportation pass.

With the departure of Castricano from the Senate, it is unclear who on the student side will continue to work on the TGIF project.

“Brendan has been the most vocal advocate for the green fund who never really wavered in his desire to make this happen,” Spalding said.

ASPSU Senator Patricia Binder, who heads up the current student government campaign to create a universal transportation pass, credits Castricano for getting the referendum on the ballot.

Studer-Spevak said that at the time the TGIF process began, no one was aware that other options for funding existed beyond student fees, because The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation challenge grant of $25 million awarded to PSU in September 2008 had not yet been announced.

The comprehensive approach to this is to look at all the options and then move forward, Studer-Spevak said.

“Getting something like this to happen is drawn out,” Studer-Spevak said.
Daniel Lyons, president pro tempore of the Student Senate, said that since students passed the referendum, students should have a voice in what is done.