By John Custodio
On Feb. 4, the SUNY Oswego Student Association announced the date of presidential and vice presidential elections, and the bi-annual student activity fee referendum.
Students can vote for the next SUNY Oswego Student Association president and vice president on March 10 and 11, alongside a referendum deciding if the $120 student activity fee will remain mandatory or if it will become voluntary.
From July 1 to March 5, 2020, the Student Association collected $1,332,489 via student activity fees, and a further $32,000 from the Oswegonian, WNYO and WTOP incomes, and from the Student Association Programming Board (SAPB) concerts and Student Association Volunteer Ambulance Corporation (SAVAC) fundraising events to a total of $1,364,489. The Student Association spent $1,364,264.80, profiting $224.20. Large expenses for the Student Association include the Centro bus contractual agreement with a total of $95,000 and ALANA programming totaling $25,000. The rest of the funds are divided up between student clubs ranging from the Black Student Union to the chess club, and club sports such as men’s club soccer and women’s club softball.
According to current Student Association vice president Alanna Hill, the referendum vote takes place every two years but the last referendum in 2019 was a very close vote, with the fee nearly becoming voluntary.
“If that fee wasn’t mandatory anymore and it was voluntary, the likely outcome would be that many students would not pay it,” Hill said. “Like if the fee is voluntary, you’re not going to select to pay it.”
Hill said that if the student activity fee became voluntary, the budget would come nearly entirely from the profits of the media organizations, SAPB and SAVAC fundraising and events. Hill said students would be able to pay the fee voluntarily but doubted that many would willingly pay an extra $120 a semester on top of other fees and tuition.
“Everyone’s budget, from club sports to [the media organizations] to the special interest clubs, the academic clubs, the services, the adults that work on our payrolls and get their whole year salary, that money comes from there too,” Hill said. “If we lost all that money, we would also lose all of those services and benefits.”
Hill said that many services that students use daily such as the Centro bus contract and the sustainability office’s bikeshare would not be able to operate or the Student Association would have to find funding from other sources. The Student Association is urging students to vote to keep the activity fee mandatory so clubs can get more funding.
“The last year, it was a super close vote and I think the only thing that pushed us to keep it mandatory was all the clubs that told their members ‘go save our money’,” Hill said. “But it was a close vote, which is scary, because if we lose the money, we lose all of these things.”
The Student Association does have reserve funds in case of club emergencies, currently totalling roughly $1.3 million, but Hill said that is enough for one year of current funding. Hill said if the fee became voluntary, clubs and organizations would be fine for funding for one year, but the next year would have next to nothing with current budgets.
WNYO alternative director Ash Perretta is in favor of keeping the student activity fee, citing repair and replacement costs for equipment at the radio stations.
“If we can’t fix things, then we don’t have a station,” Perretta said. “I feel like student activities are an essential part of the college experience, so cutting out that budget or making it voluntary you lose a lot of opportunities for experience.”
John Rath, a member of men’s club baseball, knows what it is like for his club to not have a budget after the club baseball team did not get funding for 2021-2022 due to the president not submitting a budget. Rath said he is in favor of the activity fee remaining mandatory.
“Without that money, we wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Roth said.
The Student Association budget is public record, with the entire distribution of funds available on the Student Association documents page on lakerlife.oswego.edu.
Brandon Ladd | The Oswegonian
