Home > News
PFC allocates more money on appeals
The LGBTQA was hoping for a higher budget to help fund its Transgender Day of Remembrance event
by Jobetta Hedelman | Freelance Editor
Most of the student groups appealing their Programs Finance Committee allocations for the 2007-08 school year left their appeal hearings with a little more money, but not everyone was happy.
On Thursday, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance came to the hearing to request an extra $266 to fund its "Transgender Day of Remembrance." Members said the event is a day to commemorate the lives of transgendered people who have been murdered.
The PFC originally allocated $84 for the event, which Opey Freedle, the board representative for the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance, said is not even enough to purchase candles for a vigil.
Freedle called the $84 allocation "crumbs" and said that at the original budget hearing, at which the group received a 2.33 percent budget decrease, the PFC told the LGBTQA it should be privileged to not get a bigger cut.
"I reject that," Freedle said. "You've afforded us $84 to remember the lives of people who have been killed. This is a community that doesn't have privilege."
In the original budget hearing, the LGBTQA received a budget decrease because it did not spend enough of its money in the 2005-06 school year.
LGBTQA representative Kawa Kuller said that the unspent money was due to a speaker canceling at the last minute for an event held at the end of May. She said that at the original hearing, the point was made that if the speaker had not canceled, the group would have spent the money and would not have had to take a budget decrease.
Kuller said the speaker's cancellation was beyond the group's control.
LGBTQA Director John Joo said that the PFC broke "viewpoint neutrality" in the original budget hearing when PFC members told the group that the Multicultural Center also had a speaker cancel at the last minute and was still penalized for not spending that money.
Student Senator Erica Reiko Anderson, who attended the hearing, said that she was on last year's PFC and said that since there has been no official rule set over what to do for groups whose speakers cancel, the PFC should make decisions for the individual groups and not base allocations on what happened with other programs.
On Thursday, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance came to the hearing to request an extra $266 to fund its "Transgender Day of Remembrance." Members said the event is a day to commemorate the lives of transgendered people who have been murdered.
The PFC originally allocated $84 for the event, which Opey Freedle, the board representative for the Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance, said is not even enough to purchase candles for a vigil.
Freedle called the $84 allocation "crumbs" and said that at the original budget hearing, at which the group received a 2.33 percent budget decrease, the PFC told the LGBTQA it should be privileged to not get a bigger cut.
"I reject that," Freedle said. "You've afforded us $84 to remember the lives of people who have been killed. This is a community that doesn't have privilege."
In the original budget hearing, the LGBTQA received a budget decrease because it did not spend enough of its money in the 2005-06 school year.
LGBTQA representative Kawa Kuller said that the unspent money was due to a speaker canceling at the last minute for an event held at the end of May. She said that at the original hearing, the point was made that if the speaker had not canceled, the group would have spent the money and would not have had to take a budget decrease.
Kuller said the speaker's cancellation was beyond the group's control.
LGBTQA Director John Joo said that the PFC broke "viewpoint neutrality" in the original budget hearing when PFC members told the group that the Multicultural Center also had a speaker cancel at the last minute and was still penalized for not spending that money.
Student Senator Erica Reiko Anderson, who attended the hearing, said that she was on last year's PFC and said that since there has been no official rule set over what to do for groups whose speakers cancel, the PFC should make decisions for the individual groups and not base allocations on what happened with other programs.
Be the first to comment on this story