The Badger Herald: News: Student leaders to receive raise

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Student leaders to receive raise

KRIS UGARRIZA/Herald photo

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Also by Amelia Vorpahl:

CALS, Polygon Council propose funding rules (December 8, 2008)
ASM constitution 1 step away from student vote (December 4, 2008)
Student leaders to receive raise (December 2, 2008)
ASM constitution nears completion (November 19, 2008)
Pay for public university heads outpaces private (November 18, 2008)

By Amelia Vorpahl
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:00 a.m.

6 Vote 0 Votes

The Student Services Finance Committee approved the Student Judiciary and SSFC budgets Monday, including increases in stipends for ASM officials.

The SJ budget was approved unanimously with no proposed cuts at $52,600, a 7 percent increase from last year’s budget. SSFC’s budget passed at $161,225, which is a 2.3 percent increase from last year.

SJ Chief Justice Shaun Hernandez said most of the increases in their budget came from stipend increases. Hernandez said these increases reflect stipend growth in other branches of the Associated Students of Madison.

“Even though our hours vary widely, our responsibilities are pretty large,” Hernandez said. “The practical aspect of the rationale behind the increase is to achieve parity at least between us and the ASM committee chair.”

According to Hernandez, many justices put in time outside of regularly scheduled meetings and hearings and increasing stipends would motivate justices to work harder.

“Salaries correlate pretty well with the incentive to do work,” Hernandez said. “If a salary is increased, the expectation would be for more work to be put in.”

SSFC member Tyler Junger said he was “torn” over the stipend increases, but ultimately said he felt they were reasonable in light of the hours and work he said SJ puts in.

“It might look like ASM is giving itself raises,” Junger said. “However, I feel like in the interest of giving them the benefit of the doubt, I think that this is fair.”

SSFC Chair Kurt Gosselin said the increases in SSFC’s budget come from stipend increases, advertising and outreach programming.

According to Gosselin, the stipend increases are based on salary increases of the ASM leadership positions. He said there is a total increase of $8,000 in SSFC salaries, a 7 percent increase in salaries from last year.

SSFC Vice Chair Carl Fergus said the stipend increases are an adequate compensation for the committee’s work. He said the increases could also provide access to ASM for students who wouldn’t have the financial means to do so otherwise.

“This should not be seen as us padding our own pockets by any means,” Fergus said. “This should be seen as getting paid for work done.”

6 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | December 2, 2008 2:20 AM | Reply

I think any increases for payments within ASM should not be decided by a committee of ASM. Taking money from student org budgets that they would use for the same reason but allowing SJ to get an increase in their budget doesn’t make sense to me. If student seg fees are to be set aside to pay SJ members more the students should decide. But if you apply the new 15% rule it would never happen because no one cares. I don’t think anyone involved with ASM should get any form of pay increase until ASM as a whole can prove to the student body that they can actually do something for the campus.

Fergus’ comment about making ASM positions more accessible to students that don’t have the financial means to do so is a load of crap. Paying people more to be in ASM will just increase the number of people that join in order to pad their resumes for grad school. It will by no means increase the number of people that join ASM to actually make a difference (which is probably close to zero now anyway).

Anonymous | December 2, 2008 7:12 AM | Reply

I’m in grad school here and served about 30 hours a week on my college’s student government without being paid. It’s not fair for us to pay students to sloth around and pad their resumes to be in student government.

We don’t pay members of the Spanish club, after all.

Anonymous | December 2, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply

To the two previous comments: you are both wrong. First of all, if you calculate in the amount of time that most student government leaders put in for their positions, their wages come out to be about $4-5 an hour. If you have a problem with the resume “padders”, then don’t elect them. You do know that you elect them, right? Also, if you are that concerned about wages, you better check out the other organizations that are funded on campus. Multicultural Student Coalition pays about 40 people—with your money.

Anonymous | December 2, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply

11:09—

It’s the second poster again. I actually voted none of the above after reading these clowns’ resumes. (I’ve got a PhD to finish and can’t devote another undergraduate’s worth of time to student government any longer.)

And I do have a problem with the MSC people being paid. Even $4 or $5 per hour is too much for student government or any non-work study position in student organizations.

Kurt M. Gosselin | December 2, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply

First note: the $8390.60 in salary increases for the SSFC Budget consists of $2385 required for FTE staff increases, and another $2205.60 for an Accountability Liaison position which will be in place to work with GSSF groups, making sure the money is being spent appropriately. The remaining $3800 constitutes the increases in SSFC leadership stipends.

2nd Note: At approximately 35 hours per week (which is on the low end some weeks - I put in 52 hours in a week two weeks ago) for 46 weeks, the total payment per hour the SSFC Chair would receive next year is approximately $4.84 per hour.

3rd Note: Vice Chair Carl Fergus’ comment about making these positions more accessable is extremely valid. Most students on this campus cannot afford to commit 35-40 hours per week to an unpaid position. The Union pays employees to sit and count the number of students walking into the Union at $10/hour. The SSFC Chair and Vice Chair positions are supervisor positions with administrative duties and dozens of weekly meetings, including many at ridiculous working hours. No one would question these “salaries” if this were a “real” (by real I mean recognized as part of a public or private entity). In fact, this would likely be a $50,000-$60,000 per year job.

Furthermore, an average committee member spends between 15 & 20 hours per week on SSFC-related business. Again, the modest stipend being provided to these students will hopefull alleviate the marginal cost of “losing” $127.50-$170 per week that could be made working an $8.50/hr job. In fact, if you tally up the entire opportunity cost for an SSFC member without the stipend over the course of teh academic year (30 weeks), an SSFC member “loses” $3825 by serving on SSFC. However, the modest $1000 a committe member would receive reduces this marginal loss to “only” $2825.

Thus, I would argue the extra DIME this costs each student on campus is appropriately spent and will help ensure proper student management over the allocable segregated fee for years to come.

-SSFC Chair Kurt M. Gosselin

Anonymous | December 2, 2008 4:25 PM | Reply

Carl Fergus here,

 First of all, not every member involved in ASM receives a stipend. The ones that do receive stipends are in leadership positions and are required to put in a certain amount of time and effort into the organization. Certain student groups such as WCSU have advocated for this increase in ASM leadership stipends because they feel that a lot of people are not able to obtain these positions because of their own financial situation, and an increase would give a greater amount of people the opportunity to try to serve as a leader in ASM. 
 On answering another point, 11:09 is correct in saying that ASM leaders currently make well under the minimum wage, anywhere from $.98 an hour to around $5.00 depending on the position. This is well under the minimum wage, and even farther under what other positions on campus make that are paid for by tuition money and segregated fees. The ASM budget will be scrutinized to the highest degree, and hopefully overall it will decrease, but the stipend increases are much needed for students to be able to appropriately make choices on the funding of student organizations and services.