From page 3 of The Student Life's Senate Briefs:
Dornbach-Bender brought up the issue of payment because he felt that without greater compensation, some students, specifically those that have to hold other jobs, would be prevented from running for the top ASPC positions. Dorchbach-Bender also said that CMC senators' significant reimbursement made him feel inferior. After 20 minutes of discussion, Finley informed Dorchbach-Bender that ASPC Presidents could hold jobs outside of their Senate duties. Senate decided to postpone the remaining discussion to a time when such spending was more economically feasible.Good for Finley for being responsible with her money! But really it is public service. Why should any of the students get paid for showing up to vote away our money? And does anyone know just how much ASCMC senators get paid? I can't find any figures....
If only Brad Walters, last year's ASCMC president, had led their first. Brad, though, increased compensation for members of the government because he worried that people would be more inclined to become dorm RAs.
I will vote for whichever candidate promises me that he'll be more fiscally responsible. A good start would be waiving the compensation that the job brings.
7 comments:
ASCMC Senators receive no compensation.
ASCMC Board members receive small stipends with the exception of ASCMC President, who receives full room and board, most of which is paid for by DOS. That's because most ASCMC Presidents apply for RA as well and ultimately choose between the two positions.
I say other board members have "small" stipends because they would be much larger if they were paid at minimum wage or on a pro-rata basis.
Personally, I agree that some stipends are a bit high, but they were passed by near unanimous vote in the Senate.
lets take this post to its logical conclusion. NO MORE PAYING GOV"T OFFICIALS. I demand Obama give back his salary, along with all the senators and congress(wo)men. Its a public service, right? Who cares about corruption and competing interests. For the sake of public service, we should never pay gov't officials. < /sarcasm>
Kevin,
The comparison between the actual government and student government is laughable. Think, don't analogize.
I agree that ASCMC bears almost no resemblance to municipal, state, or federal government. ASCMC doesn't even claim to be a "government" of any kind. It's basically just an organization (a non-profit corporation) that pools the money of students to spend on student life activities, but that's a simplification.
I do think stipends serve a purpose, though. I'm not sure if it's a psychological purpose ("I can't believe I'm spending so much time and energy carrying steel fences across campus for monte carlo, but at least I'm getting a small stipend for my work and I enjoy it so I'll keep doing it") or an opportunity cost purpose-- paying the ASCMC President the same as an RA because he can't do both, or paying the CFO $600 per semester because he could be making much more working minimum wage instead of writing checks and keeping the books straight.
ASCMC stipend amounts are listed in the ASCMC constitution (on ascmc.org).
It's actually illegal to have a chartered non-profit run by unpaid volunteers. You could reduce salaries to $1, but you can't reduce them to 0.
I should clarify Charles. I was responding to your argument that
" But really it is public service.Why should any of the students get paid...". If we take that argument to its logical conclusion, then we should not pay any public officials. If you ammended that argument to something like we should not pay students for public service, that is a separate argument that is debatable. My tiff is with your overbearing statement that we should not pay public servants. If I am mistaken in your argument then I retract my analogy.
In an ideal world, no one would be paid for public service, just as no one is paid for community service but I suppose we're too far gone for the first.
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