OPINION & EDITORIAL
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by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Thursday, December 6, 2007
A group of elected and appointed officials are working through a nearly $3 million budget. After rationalizing a way to approve hundreds of thousands of dollars for various organizations with very few cuts, they arrive at their own internal budget. They review the budget decisions of the last few weeks and their own pledge of fiscal responsibility, and they decide on what they can see is an appropriate course of action: give themselves a raise.
Irresponsibility, thy name is ASM.
On Monday, the Student Services Finance Committee decided all their hard work could benefit from some extra cash. They voted to give SSFC members who show up to mandatory meetings and seem to be paying attention a $40 per week stipend.
This board respectfully asks the question: What were you thinking?
Students should not join SSFC or any other bureaucratic arm of our student government because they're going to get compensation out of it; they should do it because they genuinely care about the state of this university. According to SSFC chair Alex Gallagher, in a Badger Herald news article, a position on SSFC requires just six to 12 hours a week. We do not think this is a tremendous burden, and accordingly, a stipend is not necessary.
If SSFC thinks its members need an extra incentive to do the job they were either elected or appointed to do anyway, then perhaps those members should step down — it certainly could make the committee more efficient.
The absolute lunacy of a finance committee deciding they should direct funds to reward themselves for putting in minimal effort is astounding. With the never-ending debate over distribution of segregated fees centering on SSFC, it seems not only unreasonable, but selfish for SSFC members to receive any of that money.
Perhaps even more astounding is the fact that this measure was initially voted down, but reintroduced by SSFC member Brittany Weigand, despite her concerns the Student Council would not approve such a measure. If this is the case, then why waste time bringing it up again?
Let us make it clear to SSFC: This raise is irresponsible, wasteful and one of the more foolish ideas ASM has come up with — even the proposed grocery store had more merit than this. Well, maybe not.
Still, unless SSFC would also like to pass a measure deeming themselves irrelevant, it should do itself and the rest of campus a favor and withdraw this proposal.
Anonymous (December 6, 2007 @ 11:11am):
What a joke.
Anonymous (December 6, 2007 @ 11:32am):
Outraged! So my seg fees are paying for someone's bull salary? This pisses me off.
Anonymous (December 6, 2007 @ 11:46pm):
The members of the SSFC put a tremendous amount of work in each week. Besides having twelve hours of mandatory meetings a week (normally running to midnight or later). They have hours of outside lobbying meetings with various groups concerning their budgets. While it probably would have been better to have this raise go through the Student Council, their fears that the Council would not understand just how much work they put in is clearly justified since the Badger Herald Editorial Board can not even understand the hard work done by these members. Forty dollars a week would still not make me want to do what SSFC members do. If the Badger Herald Editorial Board doesn't think this raise is necessary, and insist on constantly throwing stones at the SSFC and the segregated fee process - they need to put their money where their mouth is and join the SSFC. They're always looking for new members because of such a high turnover due to the demanding work. Perhaps then they would actually understand how the process actually works.
Anonymous (December 7, 2007 @ 2:12am):
This is a bunch of malarky. Why should students money be wasted on a bunch of student bureaucratic hack.
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