Opinion Unsigned Editorial

Some say student government has outgrown itself

Now that SF State has dropped funding for football, "Student A" is a player without a team.

"Student B" thought she would be graduating from SF State last spring, only to discover that some credits she had been counting on for graduation would not be accepted in the requirement areas she had budgeted them for.

"Student C" is the drummer in a struggling band, who enrolled at SF State in the event his group doesn't make it to MTV.

These three hypothetical students would, like all SF State students, pay $84 a year in fees to student government. Which of them would benefit the most by seeking help from Associated Students, Inc. and its $2 million budget?

Although the football program was once funded by student body fees overseen by AS, the source of funding for athletics and other instructionally related activities today is a separate "IRA" fee of $70 per year, over which AS has no control.

Sympathy and a non-binding resolution condemning the administration's decision to cancel the football program is about all Student A could expect from AS.

Student B might receive assistance in a more tangible form -- if she chose to file a lawsuit. AS budgets about $20,000 a year for the legal resource center. But what help could AS provide if Student B instead took her case to the dean, and could AS have helped prevent the situation from arising in the first place by providing an alternative to the sometimes overburdened and difficult-to-schedule academic advising offered by SF State?

One thing AS does actively support is live entertainment at the Cesar Chavez Student Center. Student C's band might find themselves under the floodlights at Jack Adams Hall, playing their music through a professional sound system for a crowd drawn not only by AS promotion for the show, but by the music filling Malcolm X Plaza and the promise of free admission. Either way, it's a good paying gig, courtesy of AS Performing Arts and $170,000 in student fees per year.

This is not to say AS Performing Arts shouldn't receive student fees to sponsor music and show films -- or even that AS should reconsider whether some of the programs it sponsors are underutilized and don't benefit more than a handful of students.

Hypothetical students could be selected to justify funding all the programs AS supports. The Children's Center, the Women's Center, the Education and Referral Organization for Sexuality -- all are good causes. But who decides which programs take priority?

Some of the programs, like the child care center or Project Rebound -- an outreach program which recruits prisoners to attend SF State -- will never be used by a vast majority of students.

Others, such as AS Performing Arts, have the potential to be used by all students.

That may explain why AS Performing Arts receives seven times more funds than Project Rebound. But if the purpose of AS is to provide services for students, isn't a program like Project Rebound more important than providing subsidies for free entertainment such as movies? Shouldn't the funding levels for these two programs be reversed -- with seven times more money going to outreach and scholarships than to entertainment?

If the only criteria for funding a program is the number of students it will serve, why is the child care center, which will serve only students with children --and only a limited number of them, at that -- by far and away AS's biggest expenditure?

And why is student government running a child-care program and a prison-outreach program in the first place? Aren't those the state of California's responsibilities?

Again, the issue is not whether one program is more deserving than another, but instead: what say do students have in the process by which funding levels for programs are set?

WHERE IS THE DEBATE?

When the dust clears from on-campus battles such as the Malcolm X Mural conflict and last spring's contested AS elections, who then makes the decisions on how to spend the student fees collected by AS?

These funds are, in theory, overseen by student government. But AS has grown to such an extent that it seems no longer possible for students to manage its business activities. This is also an issue at other university campuses, such as U.C. Berkeley, where student government oversees a budget of over $14 million.

Students are out of the loop. The AS business office -- with its full time staff and a program budget second only to that of the children's center -- makes budget recommendations, and the student legislature approves them.

There is no question that the business office is a necessity. Elected student office-holders can't reasonably be expected to run AS' day-to-day operations or make long-term budget projections. But what seems to happen too often is that student legislators let the business office set budget priorities, simply rubber-stamping its decisions.

AS and student government were created because students did not want to rely on the state to finance things like a bookstore, a student center and a football program back in the cash-strapped 1930s.

If the student legislature were to re-examine how student fees are spent, a logical approach would be to return to this philosophy: providing services to students the state is too broke, or politically disinclined to provide.

Child care and prison outreach seem to fit that bill. Other possibilities could be providing financial aid for students, or even scholarships.

Buying textbooks and computers, or starting a cooperative program whereby students get free access to both, could also be an option.

This may all seem like too much work. If the thought of having student legislators determining spending policies is just too frightening, maybe student government should be abolished, or the funds made available to it drastically scaled back.

AS has already relinquished control over many of the programs it once oversaw. The student center, athletic budget and bookstore, for example, are all subsidized by students -- the bookstore indirectly, through sales of textbooks and computers to students.

So why couldn't the child care center, like the student health center, be funded by a separate fee and administered independently with oversight from CSU? The child care center's net operating subsidy is about $140,000 a year. In addition, more than half a million dollars a year in AS fees are currently socked away for construction of a new child care facility.

The student legislature costs about $80,000 a year, or less than 10 percent of AS' budget. If having student government at this school is still important to people -- and fewer than one in ten SF State students vote in AS elections -- that would be a relatively inexpensive program to maintain.

Cutting everything but the legislature, and creating a separate fee to build and subsidize the operations of the planned $3.4 million child care center, would at least put dollars back in students' pockets -- about $48 a year.

There are undoubtedly many valid objections that could be raised to these drastic suggestions. So let's hear them -- along with any suggestions that would make AS more of an aid and less of an obstacle in obtaining a college diploma.

[ back to Golden Gater Online September 12, 1995 ]

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