Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 4/1/09 Section: News

The six-member joint resolution committee (JRC) released a final budget passed 5-1 and approved by President Minahan to raise student fees $5 per term during the 2009-2010 school year, ending the 3-month budget-making process begun by IFC (Incidental Fee Committee).
Senate budget chair Joel Everett said he and other JRC members (Adam Swick-IFC, Tyler Laughlin-Senate, Kristina Babbit-Senate, Nicole Williams-IFC and Stephen Caulkin-IFC) went through the budgets line-by-line to find inflation and other areas deemed unnecessary.
"It's the IFC's job to thoroughly go through each and every department's budget and ask as many questions as possible, get as much information as possible from last year's and prior years' discussions and areas and come up with a decision," said Everett.
He said Senate's job is to act as accountability for IFC. JRC then meets to hash out the differences between the two budgets.
JRC budget numbers for 2009-2010 contain discrepancies based on that description, though.
IFC's final budget decision projected a $10 increase per term in student fees; Senate proposed a $9 increase; JRC raised student fees by $5.
Everett said JRC changed all of the budgets this year from those submitted by Senate and IFC, rather than only the areas in controversy because members of the JRC did not feel that either IFC or Senate had done their jobs properly in researching the budgets and cutting excess funds.
Except for ASWOU and Student Media, all departments received increased funding for 2009-2010, ranging from 5.7 percent to 1227.8 percent.
ASWOU, which received a 5.6 percent decrease in funding, requested less student dollars, and Everett said the 8.8 percent cut from 2008-2009 funding for student media was due to the TV/Radio station not running next year and because the "Northwest Passage," Western's literary journal, will only put out two issues next year, as opposed to the three for which the magazine is currently being funded.
"On IFC, we heard a lot when we had the open hearings," Caulkin said. "We had a lot of support for fully-funding every division. Naturally, those are the people that have an interest and really want to see the departments fully-funded. Arguments were really good, really just. [We] have to realize that these are just a few of the students-have to keep in mind that these are just the students that care enough to show up."
Williams, however, said that anyone can easily become an involved member of their campus community.

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