USAC votes to add Social Justice and #UCLAwellness referenda on ballot

Students will be able to vote on two new fee referenda, one supporting outreach and retention programs and another supporting student wellness initiatives, in this spring’s undergraduate student government election.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to add two referenda, the Social Justice Referendum of 2016 and the #UCLAwellness Referendum, to the spring ballot for student consideration. The first referendum would cost $24.99 per quarter, and the second would cost $6 per quarter in 2017 and rise to $18 per quarter after two years.

Social Justice Referendum of 2016 aims to increase funding for a variety of retention and outreach programs, including Community Programs Office-affiliated groups, the Academic Advancement Program and the Academic Affairs Commission, among others. It also aims to keep the John Wooden Center open 24 hours per day.

The #UCLAwellness Referendum aims to fund three USAC offices, UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services, or CAPS, and a USAC programming fund to which student groups and student government offices can apply.

The referenda will need a majority of votes and a 20 percent voter turnout in the spring USAC election to be put into place. The proposed fees are also subject to inflationary increases, and 25 percent of each fee, if passed, would be returned to students in the form of financial aid.

Two other referenda are already slated to be on the ballot: an extension of The Green Initiative Fund fee, and a Daily Bruin and Bruinwalk referendum. Voter turnout has been fluctuating around 30 to 35 percent since 2008.

Zack Dameron, the USAC Community Service Commissioner and an author of the #UCLAwellness Referendum, said it is intended to support the Community Service Commission, Student Wellness Commission and Campus Events Commission in USAC. If passed, it will also support USAC’s Contingency Programming Fund, which has received an increasing amount of applications from student groups in recent years.

Dameron said UCLA has the lowest non-mandated university fees relative to all UC campuses.

“UC Merced has about half of the student groups UCLA has, yet they charge double the non-mandated student fees,” Dameron said.

Dameron said the wellness initiative will enable USAC offices to cater to an expanding student body over the next few years.

Student Wellness Commissioner Marvin Chen said administrators Nicole Green, interim executive director of CAPS, and Suzanne Seplow, assistant vice chancellor of student development, collaborated with student government officials to draft the referendum. He added this is the first time student government offices are advocating for CAPS by trying to raise financial support for the service.

Stephanie Wong, the Finance Committee chair, said an average of 40 new student groups are registered each year. Wong said there are no sustainable funding sources to support the contingency funding source, especially given an increase in student enrollment and inflation.

Campus Events Commissioner Lexi Mossler said funding has been stagnant and honorarium fees have been increasing. She added the funds from the referendum would enable her office to expand their programs and counter high production costs.

Jazz Kiang, chair of the Campus Retention Committee and one of the authors of the Social Justice Referendum of 2016, said he and other groups affiliated with the Community Programs Office brought forward the referendum to address budgetary concerns. He said the programs face additional costs due to the University of California-wide minimum wage increase to $15 an hour over the next three years, and the California minimum wage increase to $10 an hour. If passed, the referendum will raise about $2.5 million annually.

Kiang, who authored the 2014 Bruin Diversity Referendum that did not pass following low voter turnout in a fall quarter special election, said he thinks the urgency of the issue makes it more likely that the Social Justice Referendum of 2016 will be successful.

“We will paint a very tangible picture of what will happen if this doesn’t get passed,” he said. “This would mean half of the (currently available) appointments for the test bank, 25 pages per quarter (of free printing) in the computer lab (instead of 75 per quarter), and fewer jobs for students.”

Kiang said the $24.99 proposed quarterly fee increase is higher than other recent referenda at UCLA, but is still lower than successful fees at other UC campuses.

Last year, UC Berkeley students voted to approve a referendum that would increase student fees by $54 per semester.

Some students criticized the two referenda as being too expensive, saying student groups should rely more on private funding.

“It is hypocritical for these student organizations to call for lower tuition while increasing student fees to raise money for themselves,” said Jacob Kohlhepp, president of Bruin Republicans.

At Tuesday’s USAC meeting, dozens of students who support the Social Justice Referendum of 2016 spoke about how the programs the referendum would fund have helped them. Some said the programs were crucial in putting them on the path to graduation.

Charles Alexander, director of the Academic Advancement Program, which would benefit from the Social Justice Referendum, said he agrees that students should not have to foot the costs for these programs, but thinks the referendum is necessary because programs like AAP have exhausted other funding options, like external grants.

Earlier this year, several groups including UCLA Student Media, which publishes the Daily Bruin, discussed creating one combined student fee referendum. However, the groups did not combine, instead creating the Daily Bruin and Bruinwalk Referendum, the #UCLAwellness Referendum and the Social Justice Referendum of 2016.

Kiang said he thinks it would have been easier to pass a vote from the student body if the three groups had instead worked on one referendum.

He said he was particularly disappointed that Dameron made the #UCLAwellness Referendum an independent measure from the Social Justice Referendum of 2016 days before the referenda were submitted to USAC.

“Zack Dameron was dishonest and pulled out for his own self interest,” Kiang said. “What this does is places the issues in the wellness referendum against the issues in the social justice referendum, even though all of these issues are important.”

Dameron said his backing out from the collective referendum does not make him dishonest. He added he thinks Kiang’s comments about his self-interest are false.

Dameron said once the coalition formed, Kiang ran it as a “one man show” and was concerned about what he thought of as using the morality of a social justice header to fund CPO. He added his office supported the notion to withdraw from the coalition.

“My office asked me to withdraw from the collective referendum,” Dameron said. “I was elected to serve other voices, and I did just that.”

Dameron said he chose to not to work with Kiang because their initiatives and goals were different, with one group focused on social justice and another on student wellness. He added he did not want his work to lose transparency under a higher-priced referendum.

“The needs of our respective spaces were different,” Dameron said at Tuesday’s meeting. “Working together just didn’t work out.”

Sam Hoff, editor in chief of the Daily Bruin, said UCLA Student Media decided to run an independent referendum because they felt a broader referendum did not align as well with the organization’s goals or mission. He added the newspaper staff felt it would be clearer for the student body if the Daily Bruin asked for an independent referendum.

Undergraduate students will vote on the referenda in the upcoming elections in week 6 of spring quarter.