Members of UCLA’s undergraduate student government voted Tuesday night to increase their stipends from $355 to $672 per month in an effort to make serving on the council more financially feasible.
The decision passed with a vote of 8-1-0 after several weeks of discussions and debates about the change, which was proposed to the Undergraduate Students Association Council by Roy Chamapawat, director of the UCLA Student Union, and Patricia Zimmerman, student government services manager.
Starting this year, councilmembers will be paid for a 20-hour work week at $8 an hour, which is California’s minimum wage. In their presentations to the council, Champawat and Zimmerman expressed concern about rising student fees over past years and a static rate of pay for councilmembers.
USAC President John Joanino said he thinks the decision was difficult for councilmembers to make because the money used to increase council pay could possibly go to student groups if those groups requested more funding.
“At the same time, we are all students and are dealing with the same financial realities,” he said.
Internal Vice President Avi Oved was the only councilmember to vote against increasing stipends. Oved said that he did not feel comfortable raising his own stipend because it could take away from student group funding.
Other councilmembers also expressed concern about raising their own pay, but they argued that they did not want low wages to deter other students from serving on the council in the future.
Multiple councilmembers said they had to quit their jobs because of the time commitment required to serve on council, and that they work significantly more than 20 hours a week.
Joanino said he plans to increase the council’s outreach to student groups to make them more aware of the funding accessible to them.
Compiled by Amanda Schallert, Bruin senior staff.
The council just voted to take money from students to pay themselves? Excuse me?!
When did council decide to abandon the students they claim to represent? Also, didn’t Joanino say he wanted to try raise the money elsewhere? So when it doesn’t pan out, it’s all of a sudden ok to steal student’s money?
Good for Avi Oved. Shame on the rest of USAC!
“Joanino said he plans to increase the council’s outreach to student
groups to make them more aware of the funding accessible to them.”
AKA Joanino will tell students “we just took your money, so here’s what’s left”
For real, what does increasing awareness of funding have to do with them increasing stipends or the total funds available for students groups. I just love how some of these USA council members will just through out buzz words to try to deter focus…
Not only did they do this over the summer when no one is on campus, and not only will these increases affect this council (as opposed to Congressional pay raises which go into effect in the next session), many of the same students that supported student fee increases are now using student fees to pay themselves!!
How about push your platforms that you were elected on? How about make campus better for all students? How about working towards making school more affordable for everyone, not using our fees to pay yourselves?
There are hundreds of talented students at UCLA who volunteer their time for their student groups, and USAC thinks they’re justified in increasing their own pay! Are you kidding?!?!?!?!
We now know the only member of USAC we can trust is Avi Oved.
Keep in mind that Darren Ramalho, Lauren Rogers, and Sunny Singh were not present to vote at council. Let’s email our council and express our concerns.
Even if they voted agianst it, it would still be two thirds for…
I’ve spoken with Sunny and I know for a fact that he doesn’t support this.
In the morning on CNN: “deans are wasting money and should take less of student’s money”
In the evening: “we should take more of student’s money”
Shame on council. Respect to Avi Oved
This is complete crap. Is there an option to opt out of paying for USAC fees?
Yes, there is actually. Little known fact, it used to be used back in the day by groups who wanted to protest what USAC was doing. I couldn’t find the procedure when I looked around a few documents but I am sure if you really don’t agree with something USAC is doing or just don’t feel like you are getting proper value out of it, that if you go talk to SGA or some office like that, they can help you through the process of getting reimbursed (or at least point you in the right direction).
I will be looking into that. Thanks.
Anything that SGA deals with does not deal with opting “out of paying for USAC fees.” SGA deals with funds that were allocated by the funding directors to organizations who applied for that specific funding. SGA does not handle any fees that go directly to a student’s BruinBill. Also, if y’all went to SGA to complain about the decision that our council made, then you obviously don’t understand what SGA does or how USAC funding works.
I recommend you question Roy Chamapawat, director of the UCLA Student Union, and Patricia Zimmerman, student government services manager who PROPOSED the idea to increase their stipend.
I don’t think that those two administrators have a lot of free time to deal with a lot of students. Also I dont think the people above were concerned with getting prespectives on why the stipend increase was proposed. Also the point was that I thought they would at least be able to point in the right direction 🙂
Thanks Bazley,
Is there any phone number to call
SGA? I couldn’t find it on the website. I want to see if I can prevent
the charges from ever being posted on my bruinbill so I don’t have to
worry about reimbursement later. Thanks.
I am nearly positive the process is that you have to actually be refunded the fee, and that you can’t have it prevented from being taken in the first place. However, I absolutely could be wrong. SGA stands for Student Government Accounting, I am sure if they aren’t the ones to go to they can point you in the write direction. If you find out how let me know. I personally will not be asking for a refund because I believe in USAC’s potential but I would like to know how.
Alright. Thanks.
While I know that council members dedicate a lot of time and energy, I think that it was highly inappropriate for the council to vote to raise it’s OWN stipend.
I think it would’ve been much better of if this was voted on during the regular school year, to increase the amount of oversight done by the student body represented by USAC. It’s shameful that they willing did it during summer when a good portion of the student population is abroad or home.
I understand the implications this holds of allowing more students to potentially join council, a huge conflict of interest was displayed by the increase for this coming year, especially almost doubling the current stipend. Furthermore, USAC, and the public service they are supposed to be performing, should not expect a monetary compensation for their work. The commissioners understand the work they must do when going into office and thousands of other UCLA students give their time to research, projects, volunteerism, and service with no expectations of a stipend and the same absence of expectation should be expected in our student government.
Finally, this couldn’t have happened at a worst time with the recent spending controversies done by the deans as well as the overall financial situation of the UC system and state. It sends a terrible message to our fellow Bruins that, while many are struggling with increasing fees and tuition with, in many cases, a reduction in services, not to mention the increased difficulty of students groups to secure funding, that we are DOUBLING the stipend of the thirteen council members.
Here’s a novel idea…
Don’t increase the pay until next year’s council.
What an unbelievable and shameful act act for this year’s council. If only Taylor was elected… this wouldn’t be the first garbage self-interested piece of legislation. These people haven’t even done anything yet!
it would have been worse with taylor. just sayin
I am only responding because this is a personal attack on me and to clarify what I ran on what and what I have done in the past.
One of the largest tenants of my campaign was, transparency and increased oversight. One of my major programs was going to be adding an oversight committee to over see my office appointments as well as presidential appointments to reduce conflict of interest (ie. not biased towards my friends for appointments). That philosophy would clearly translate here in waiting till school started up again to do anything and to not approving my own stipend.
Another major tenant of my campaign was protecting and bettering the image that USAC has with students in order to encourage them to be more receptive and willing to engage with USAC, ultimately to strengthen USAC and UCLA. That philosophy would translate to not increasing our stipends in the first place unless there was broad consensus among many students that USAC was deserving (which given the recent daily bruin poll and these comments there is not).
And besides what I ran on, do not misunderstand, I have dedicated so much of my time to the various community service projects, clubs, organizations, reforms, and to USAC that I have been unable to take up a job (a potential employer actually laughed at me when he saw my hours I could work). I have in a sense chosen to do something for UCLA over making money despite being a student with a 0 EFC, no family help, and expenses associated with my involvements to pay for. It is because of all this that the implication that I would suddenly try to get more money from the students is insulting.
I can’t promise that this wouldn’t have happened because the President is just one vote and his(or her) job is not to dictate over the council; but I can say that I personally would have been against it, and especially many of the aspects of it such as being over summer and affecting the current council.
Props to Taylor from his homies in cloud 9^^
In part, I understand why ASUCLA would want to increase stipends for student govt (as a way to combat inflation) but on the other hand, it’s important to note that serving on student government is a privilege, not a necessity. I also find it problematic to compare jobs of student government officials to minimum wage jobs taken on by Californians who work to survive, support their families, sustain affordable housing, etc. The work of student government officials is valuable. But, if you do the math, the added expenses for increased stipends amounts to around 49k… money which could have gone to supporting UCLAs most neediest students, to student govt. sponsored scholarships, to access projects, to Chief of Staffs of USAC offices… the list goes on. But hey, the world keeps turning. Just hold them accountable at this point. 🙂
I get why so many people commend Avi for voting against, but targeting John is a bit much. The president doesn’t get to vote unless there’s a tie. There were 10 council members at council. Only 9 got to vote. So, yeah.
^not meant to be a reply
Correct me if I’m wrong but, having served in many clubs and orgs, my experience is that the president runs the meetings and has a very large role in determining the overall opinion of his council-members. Just because he didn’t vote doesn’t mean he was voiceless and odds are he agreed with the outcome.
He did agree to it. Implicitly and explicitly is the same thing.
*most needy 🙂
*neediest 🙂
What a joke. For a few hundred a month they just killed their credibility. Rather than doing nothing and being forgotten they will now be remembered for this
Lol so true! hilarious and brutally honest
BSSSSSSSS!!!!! When I served I worked my butt of for FREE…. a self-selected indentured servitude per se! You know why I thought that acceptable? Because I volunteered to the position of SERVICE, nobody threatened or bullied me into doing my job. In all fairness, NOBODY on council – not elected, appointed, or staff members – should get any stipends because we’re all doing it as a SERVICE to our local community. Besides I still had 2 paid jobs while I was doing USAC and held a position in my 2 other clubs. Why? Because I chose to SERVE.
LEADERS BY CHOICE.
Waste of money. A 90% self-pay increase?!?!?!
Not going to lie, after working in a USAC office for a year I quickly got out of the corrupted process when I saw how ridiculous it was that these council members claim they are doing good things for students and using your money in a fiduciary manner…HA!! USAC is one of the biggest waste of student’s money there is on campus. Sure they provide SOME student groups with funding (the same groups that know how to access it)…but a lot of money goes to their “staff retreats” and alcohol purchases. It is a cult, everyone in it knows about it and doesn’t care. Don’t get me wrong, there are some people who get involved for the right reasons and try to make a difference, but the static red tape of USAC doesn’t always allow for it.
Now they want to give themselves more money to sit around and continue to do nothing? Trust me I saw the scramble before the DB printed their platform accomplishments, half the things published are such a stretch and they frantically try to prove themselves after two and a half quarters of doing nothing. They believe they deserve more money? As other people have pointed out, they tackle this issue during summer when not many people are paying attention to council’s actions. It will be a sad reality when some of them graduate and realize in a real job they can’t get a raise for doing the little work they do.
If they did more things that mattered people wouldn’t be so clueless about who USAC is and voter turn out rates wouldn’t be so low. They wouldn’t have to campaign so hard for they one week. Honestly that’s one of the only weeks they do hard work for students…
Time for a Coup d’etat
In my era, USAC members got no money. The honor of serving was their reward. As it was for the heads of other clubs and student organizations. I know. I headed one myself. And worked at the Med Center and took out loans to barely keep afloat. Even in a time when fees were a lot lower. Scholarships money was too. Many of us from poor families had to work to get through school, and we still volunteered for student activities. Not for resume stuff either. Because we actually cared.
I think this move reflects a reality: the students are a mirror of our society. And in THIS era, money rules. It rules EVERYTHING. And you are supposed to get it any way you can. I feel sorry for this generation. And yes, I am a boomer, the embodiment of all things evil to many of you. But my wife (another UCLA grad) and I have been substantial donors to UCLA over the last several decades, to the extent we could. And even when we could not afford to do that.
We are now in our decline, and cannot anymore. Honestly, reading this, I doubt we would be inclined to do that these days. Shameful. And don’t talk to me about the hours spent on USAC work. I would match MY volunteer hours at UCLA against theirs any day. I bet they were double or triple.
So I say to you current students, rebel! Protest! Picket the Chancellor’s residence. Egg the USAC officers who voted to line their own pockets. In the SIxties, we did stuff like that. And, amazingly, sometimes it worked.
Forever a Bruin.
Public servants need to start acting like public servants. They should never, ever consider themselves more important than the people that elected them. Just do their jobs correctly and not worry about campaigning. Stop worrying about being a career politician and do what is right for UCLA.
I think the real question is where’s Gene? Where are those office hours? Where is our chancellor? Where is our voice? Where is my money?
I could potentially understand the increase in pay, but the argument seems weak. If council members have to quit their jobs because they can’t handle the workload, then why didn’t they think about that before running in the first place? USAC is supposed to be student service with emphasis on the “service”. If money is an issue, then the reality is, you need to prioritize the job first. The timing of this news couldn’t be more ironic.
I think it’s reasonable to pay them $8 an hour. Normally it’s not good practice to raise your own salary, but this is perfectly fine. I know from personal experience that many of them work more than 20 hours a week.
Of course for any employment role, minimum wage should be a standard. Unfortunately that isn’t the issue. These people were elected to represent the student body. 1. They should have understood the pay before taking the job and 2. They shouldn’t be working for a salary. Honestly if the money was an issue, they should have gotten a job at In-and-Out. These people are elected for the sole purpose of serving the student body and to vote their own salaries up seems like a blatant conflict of interest as well as a disgusting violation of our trust.
So you are saying they should work for free?
They knew before they got their positions what their position and pay would consist of. If they feel that the pay was not good enough or they could not deal with it, they should not have ran.