You may be surprised to learn that Associated Students of Madison has two financial committees: the Student Services Finance Committee and the Finance Committee. Although the Finance Committee may be less glamorous than the Student Services Finance Committee (also referred to as SSFC and frequently mislabeled as the Finance Committee in the papers), it is no less important. The committee doles out over $450,000 a year and makes events and travel for student organizations on this campus possible.
The Finance Committee plays a pivotal role in the creation of the ASM’s Internal Budget. The committee is charged with holding a public hearing early in the year to seek student input, and it then forwards a recommendation to the Student Council about what the organization should fund. On Tuesday night, the ASM Finance Committee held a public hearing to seek input on its internal budget for the upcoming year. One would hope that students are clamoring to get in the door, especially students from registered student organizations that don’t get enough funding every year, but the hearing has historically been pretty quiet.
ASM has a budget of over $1 million. A large chunk of this — a little over $700,000 — goes to direct services for student organizations. Registered student organizations can apply for a chunk of the $300,000 allocated in event grants, $85,000 in travel grants and $90,000 in operations grants. The direct services section of the budget also pays for three different financial specialists to help organizations receive and expend the money they are awarded. The section for direct student services also contains $30,000, allocated toward assistance for students with disabilities with extracurricular activities.
A much smaller section of the budget funds ASM’s operations. This section totals almost $125,000 — $75,000 of this funds our directors’ salary and benefits, and the remainder funds operations of ASM (printing, office supplies, etc).
The remaining section is entitled “leadership development/programming.” This section pays for salaries of two ASM staff, a few trainings, various special events put on by the organization, dues to the United States Student Association, and finally … stipends for ASM leadership.
The leadership of the organization has been underpaid for years. Most committee chairs used to make $3,500 a year, and this increased for some positions up to $5,200 a year. However, last year the Student Council decided to place a cap on its budget, and in the 11th hour when the budget was still over the mandated cap, Student Council decided to cut $400 from each of the chair stipends. Positions that already earned less than minimum wage now earn even less.
For most (if not all) chairs within ASM, the task is a full-time job. As chair, I must hold a minimum of 10 office hours per week and do an additional 10 hours of work per week for the organization. On top of this, the chair is placed on several different committees within the organization. Still, this doesn’t account for all of the time put into the organization. I work close to full-time once one totals office hours, official committee meetings, meetings with individuals and other work. The chair is not unique in this regard. Other committee chairs put in just as much time, yet we all make far less than minimum wage. All are required to hold a certain number of office hours, do work for their committee, participate in Student Council and Coordinating Council and oftentimes sit on multiple other committees. ASM pays GSSF leaders a minimum of $9.19 an hour, but has significantly underpaid the top leaders in the student government.
Last year, I was completely in favor of the cuts to stipends. We don’t want people who are in it for the money. We want people who are committed to working with the student government on issues of higher education. At the same time, let’s be real. The amount of time that we demand doesn’t allow people to hold other jobs, and if they do, they’re unable to work enough hours to earn much money at them. So, one of my recommendations to the Finance Committee last night was to raise the stipends of the committee chairs.
With the changes that will likely occur to student government in the spring, the budget could look somewhat different, but let’s hope that the philosophy in regard to funding the leaders of the organization is different. If leadership stipends (particularly the president and vice president, but possibly others like the speaker of the senate) were raised a bit, the positions would have an incentive and become more competitive. More students would be able to dedicate the requisite time for the position, which would ideally increase the number of students able to run for the position.
At a health care conference last week I had the opportunity to speak with several student body presidents from around the country. A conversation with the president of the University of Cincinnati particularly stood out to me. His election to student body president granted him full tuition, free housing, a food stipend, free parking, as well as a regular monetary stipend on top of this. What was more surprising was that this money came from student fees. Other top leaders received some of these benefits as well. While I am certainly not of the opinion that we should shower these positions with perks and scholarships, the power of compensations reflecting the work being conducted is essential for a good organization. Additionally, a higher stipend will help make these positions more accessible to interested students, thus increasing competition for these positions. Without sufficient investment in ASM’s human capital, the organization will never function at its full capacity.
Brittany Wiegand ([email protected]) is chair of Associated Students of Madison.
