The Badger Herald

NEWS

SSFC to be paid for time

Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.

Also by Carolyn Potts:

SSFC to be paid for time (February 29, 2008)
Federal law could boost research (March 14, 2008)
Majority of university students suffer from hazing, study finds (March 13, 2008)
New trees to spring up along Bassett (March 10, 2008)
Two public colleges to lower nonresident tuition (March 10, 2008)

by Carolyn Potts

Friday, February 29, 2008

Starting fall 2008, the Associated Students of Madison will begin paying each committee member of the Student Services Finance Committee, the group that distributes $19 million in funding for student organizations.

ASM’s Student Council ultimately decided Tuesday to pay the members of SSFC for the 15 to 20 hours of work they put into the committee each week.

“We are going to have about 15 members [on the SSFC committee] next year,” ASM Chair Gestina Sewell said. “They would get $20 per meeting based off of attendance. They would have to be at the meeting for opening role call and closing role call, meaning they would have to stay for the whole meeting.”

Sewell said that this has been approved in the ASM budget as $18,000, and each member of the committee would only be allowed to accrue $1200 per year of service. SSFC members serve a two-year term.

Student Council debated heavily on this issue, more than other recent proposals, according to Student Judiciary Chief Justice Sol Grosskopf.

The committee is concerned with making this step for a number of reasons, Grosskopf said. Among these is the size of the fiscal move they have to make to start paying them.

Student Council was also concerned that this could potentially lead other committees to ask for pay.

“It’s a question of fairness,” Grosskopf said.

But Sewell said the reasoning behind their decision is to make sure that ASM is recruiting and retaining quality SSFC members. The council hoped that pay would help make up for the committee members not having other jobs.

“They do have a lot more preparation to do [than some other committees],” Sewell said. “The hope is that when there is people who are committed and prepared, there can be better discussion.”

Sewell said the council did not make the decision easily. The council didn’t want to send the message that they think what SSFC does is more important than the other committees. But the council needs more consistency in the quality of the committee members, she said.

Feedback

Show all comments

Hide anonymous comments

Anonymous (February 29, 2008 @ 6:55am):

It's roll call, not role call.

Additionally, it's ridiculous to pay members of a student organization. It's like saying all members of a campus committee should be paid. Serve for altruistic motives, not for money.

Anonymous (February 29, 2008 @ 9:53am):

I thought I should comment because I did not have time to respond to Carolyn. First, it must be noted that neither SSFC nor Student Council took this decision lightly. It received significant debate and opposition, but in the end, both bodies felt like this was an important step to strengthen the segregated fee system.

For me, the issue to stipend SSFC members is a complex one. SSFC is very different than any other student committee on campus. SSFC allocates $7 million and oversees an additional $25 million. This is obviously a significant sum of money.

For this system to be managed appropriately, it requires a significant time commitment on the part of every SSFC member. SSFC members have 2 meetings a week which typically last from 6:30-midnight. In addition, there is considerable outside prep work. This time is necessary to provide the proper oversight in this system.

The question of course, is why should we start giving stipends for this time? I believe it is in the best interest of the students to have a well representative cross section of the student body who are able to invest the amount of time necessary to see the system succeed. SSFC has a hard time retaining members, not because they do not believe in the value of the work, but rather they cannot afford to spend this much time with an extracurricular. I hope the stipend, which will total $1220 for the entire year will help offset the financial incentive to not be on SSFC. Of course a student could work during all the SSFC meetings and make significantly more money. This is important because we did not want SSFC to be a job. At the same time, we hope that this allows for more students to be willing to give up the time necessary to be members of SSFC. This will increase our candidate pool and mean higher quality members.

So, let me tie this back to students. It is in the best interest of the students to have a quality committed and diverse SSFC. At the beginning of this year, like every year, we struggled with some turnover. Nevertheless their was a core group of members how invested a lot of time and thought into the segregated free process. As a result, they reduced segregated fees by $670,000. But many are looking at this year as an anomaly. I do not think it needs to be an anomaly. By trying to address the biggest factor which weakens the system, we can hope to see stronger committees year after year. This will lead to better management of student segregated fees.

If you have any further questions about this decision, please do not hesitate to contact me at ahgallagher@wisc.edu.

Alex Gallagher
-Chair, SSFC

Anonymous (February 29, 2008 @ 11:14am):

There is a difference between student organizations and student governance. While you get a great experience in both, ultimately your experience in a general student org is more for your own personal gains. While you do gain from your experience in student government, your job is to serve all university students, which makes it more of a job than plain involvement. Also, unlike most student orgs, where you can just not show up if you are busy, SSFC needs attendance, so why not pay a stipend? I look at this similar to why we pay government officials a stipend.

Anonymous (February 29, 2008 @ 5:53pm):

The representatives on SSFC deal with millions of your dollars. They deal with issues that have been scrutinized in the highest court of our nation. They deserve whatever paltry sum ASM manages to come up with.

Anonymous (February 29, 2008 @ 6:01pm):

I see when my segregated fees are going up it's fiscally responsible to pay for jobs that were previously unpaid. I love new speak!
- Germain E. Stemme

Anonymous (March 2, 2008 @ 2:07am):

Shame on SSFC for tampering with the red-blooded American tradition of demanding that work and time be rendered for nothing! Why, just last week, after cajoling some evil trade unionist into "fixing my leaking roof" or whatever liberal nonsense he wants to call it, that greedy Democrat had the nerve to ask me for money for the service and time rendered! And to think, he never even thanked me when I offered to let him put that on his resume or to tell people about his "service" in lieu of money! And for a group that calls itself a "Finance Committee" at a major university, how DARE they indoctrinate students in the cultish mindset that their work has value! That is NO WAY to prepare our students for their future lifetime of exploitation that we ALL rely upon to keep this country great!
- Germain Q. Stemme

Anonymous (March 2, 2008 @ 10:43am):

As a previous SSFC representative for two years I think that it is outrageous that SSFC representatives will now be paid. First of all, money should not be an incentive to be on SSFC. Sure, I would have loved to have been paid for the countless hours that I put into all of the meetings and preparation. But who wouldnâ��t want to get paid for something that they were already going to do? There are students who want to be on SSFC without getting paid. In the past on major problem (which is still a problem) was student organizations would have their members run to be a representative both on Student Council and SSFC. All representatives unfortunately come to the table with a bias and now more will want to be on the SSFC to get paid. I would rather have a student who wants to be there because they truly care about fiscal responsibility and student rights than have a student be there simply so they have more money to go to the bars. If ASM and the SSFC are worried about member retention, maybe they should focus more on finding good representatives who want to make a difference and who wonâ��t mind giving their time to students. If Chair Sewell and other Student Council Representatives are worried about consistency and quality, they probably shouldnâ��t resort to money and â��hiringâ�� students who want to do it more for the money and less for the good of the student body. Yes, SSFC requires a lot of time, but most of the past SSFC representatives, including myself, knew the workload before signing on.
Secondly, the system for paying the representatives is faulty. If you are going to pay members, they shouldnâ��t be punished for having perfect attendance at all meetings; it is like you are dangling money in front of their faces and encouraging them to miss a couple of meetings because they wonâ��t get paid for their attendance. Additionally, I feel that they system could easily be corrupted. For example, two students could work out a system where they both are present at opening roll call, then one leaves shortly after to go somewhere in the Union to study or get food on State Street, etc while the other remains at the meeting. Then just before the end of the meeting, the one student who stayed at the meeting the whole time could text message their friend to come back just in time for closing roll call; this could also be done at the time of an important vote. By switching off meeting to meeting, the two would still get paid and yet only be at one meeting per week. And the only way (as it seems from reading this article) that the two members could get kicked off is by a vote from the committee because the SSFC Advisor and Chair could talk to the representatives all that they wanted but it really wouldnâ��t matter. Itâ��s surprising for a group that claims to be fiscally responsible and for the students would raise studentsâ�� tuition for the good of themselves.
Thirdly, will the representatives (both ASM Student Council representatives and SSFC representatives) who voted on this reap the benefits of their debates this year if they are on the SSFC next year? Because if they do, I think that is ridiculous!

Anonymous (March 2, 2008 @ 2:36pm):

To answer 2:07's question: There is an ASM bylaw that says those who voted for a pay increase won't be able to be paid if they voted for it.

Add a comment

We welcome your thoughts, but please keep your feedback thoughtful, on-topic and respectful. Offensive language, personal attacks, or irrelevant comments may be deleted.