The sustainability coordinator position will likely become a permanent fixture of the Associated Students of Oregon, following the Programs Finance Committee’s approval of funding for the position during its meeting Tuesday.
The $40,000 expenditure for the sustainability coordinator came as part of an overall Executive budget of $124,018, an increase of more than half from this year’s levels. The Executive budget is the one that funds the ASUO president’s staff and offices.
During their presentation, ASUO President Amelie Rousseau asked the committee to consider the funding of the sustainability coordinator as “the creation of a really exciting, beautiful project.”
“I like this position. I think it will benefit the campus,” PFC member Sen. James Dos Santos said.
Others were skeptical of the large new expenditure.
“It sounds a little greedy to ask for the full amount now,” said committee member Melissa Cohen. “Why can’t we wait?” Cohen was also curious as to why the funding was being channeled through the executive budget as opposed to being divided among the various groups that the coordinator will be working with.
Some committee members advocated passing the budget with a reduced funding level for the sustainability coordinator and recalling the budget at a later date to reconsider the matter.
The majority of the committee, however, wanted to complete the job that evening. “I want to finish this now,” Dos Santos said.
After a brief discussion of stipends, travel budgets, and office supply expenses, the committee amended the Executive budget to fund the sustainability coordinator as a full time position and passed the overall budget, both by a vote of three to one. Cohen was the only nay vote for both the amendment to fund the sustainability coordinator at full-time and the budget as a whole.
The 2010–11 school year is the ASUO’s first with a sustainability coordinator, a position added for a one-year trial period at the end of the previous year. The position exists to harmonize the efforts of various environmental groups on campus in much the same way the Multicultural Center director works with the university’s multicultural student unions.
Rockne Andrew Roll blogs for the Oregon Commentator and is a member of the Student Free Press Association.
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.