The recent actions taken by the Student Association executive board, detailed in "SA E-Board Raises Stipend to Cover Tuition" (Jan. 29th), are absurd.
The idea that an increased stipend will relieve a financial burden on future position holders is certainly valid, but I think the real cause for alarm is the methods taken to enact such a raise, as well as the rationale behind it.
The most troubling part of the increase is that it was made retroactive to last fall, a time when all the members of the current executive board were required to pay tuition, yet had already been elected. I am not sure how a retroactive raise affecting people who had already won an election helps "attract the best candidates possible." In fact, the most recent amendment to the Constitution of the United States (the 27th Amendment) prohibits the Congress from doing the exact same thing.
Second, the explanation given by SA President Christian Oliver regarding similar positions at other colleges and universities does not seem to synch up with the investigating done by The Spectrum. Furthermore, I do not think it is the job of an employee to gauge their own performance and pay grade in comparison to separate bodies at separate institutions. I believe it is also inappropriate to compare one's own performance to that of someone else of a similar standing locally; in the case of this article, a graduate assistant. No two positions are alike, and the comparison offered by Oliver would seem to be, by nature, very one-sided.
I would like to see the criteria used to compare the work of an SA officer to that of a graduate assistant. Oliver claims that that he is not "in this job for the money," yet he uses salaries of others as a basis for most of his argument.
I believe that elected officials should be compensated for their work, but I also believe that their primary concern should be the interests of their constituents, not their own salaries. The process taken by the SA executive board to raise their own stipends seems to me to call into question their personal motivations, as well as the ethics of their actions.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
