The undergraduate Student Association (SA) Senate’s third and final attempt this semester to raise e-board stipends to $24,180 has failed to pass by a single vote.
The resolution needed the Senate majority of 13 to pass per SA bylaws. 12 out of 13 senators voted to pass the resolution during the last Senate meeting Wednesday evening. Senator Grant Peterson — the only one that has continued to be staunchly opposed to it — voted against it, officially ending the resolution’s run this semester.
All five members of the e-board — president, vice president for advocacy, vice president for clubs, vice president for events and treasurer — make $375.00 weekly, totaling $19,500 annually. If passed, this resolution would have raised the weekly e-board stipends to $465.00, totaling $24,180.
The Senate gave the e-board a raise two years prior, when it ended annual flat stipend of $15,570.
SA President Aisha Adam has been the resolution’s biggest proponent, arguing that the current compensation is insufficient for the amount of hours spent working for SA. When the resolution was first introduced April 22, she told The Spectrum that she worked 1,557 hours in total and only been compensated for 880.
Senators were unconvinced the first time, shutting Adam’s first attempt down with a vote of five nays and six abstains against eight ayes after an hour-long discussion. Several continued to raise concerns over e-board accountability during a two-hour-long meeting Friday, but many eventually warmed up to the idea with a vote of 10 ayes and four nays.
Unlike the past two meetings, senators immediately went into the vote.
“Honestly, for multiple reasons, it’s the right thing to do,” Adam told senators before the vote.
Peterson clapped when the resolution was denied, telling The Spectrum afterwards that he will always be against pay increases for SA.
“Despite the sound and fury against me and all of the public defamation by SA and its employees, its leader against me, I still care about the student body and I will vote in their best interest,” Peterson said.
Adam told The Spectrum that she’s been working with senators behind the scenes to create more structured accountability and address other concerns.
“I brought this issue to many people’s attention, and thankfully, other senators who will be carrying over and running again in the next election are also passionate about the issues in addition to myself,” Adam said. “This is a common knowledge issue now and this issue that we see e-board members go through is not something we have to carry quietly anymore.”
Jack Koscinski, treasurer and incoming SA president, told The Spectrum that he does not hold an opinion on the resolution and that he can’t vote on it. He says that he ballparked around 30 to 50 hours a week as treasurer this year, and that rough estimates with the current stipend put him at around $9.00 to $10.00 an hour if averaged at 40.
“Aisha authored it as a solution to a problem she has identified in her experience and evidently her predecessors,” Koscinski wrote in an email to The Spectrum. “I think she has made a compelling argument.”
Koscinski has promised to “personally and promptly” put any member of next year’s e-board up for impeachment if they fail to execute their duties, and that he is working with Senate Chairperson Aidan Thomas to enforce and facilitate stricter Senate oversight.
Na’Dia Carter, incoming vice president for advocacy, told The Spectrum that she would support a higher stipend since e-board members often prioritize SA over other areas such as their academic studies. She herself had resigned from other jobs and positions in order to work only at SA next year.
But it’s about trust at the end of the day, Carter said.
“We’re a new e-board coming in so if students feel like, ‘No, we can’t trust you guys or we don’t want you guys to have a higher pay,’ then you have to accept that,” Carter said. We’ll do the best that we can with what we’re given,” Carter said.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
