In the new ASASUD operational budget that was passed Friday at a special Senate meeting, more than half of the passed $85,000 operational budget was recommended to be allocated to salaries for ASASUD members.
The salaries of every Executive Board member were proposed to substantially increase, with the “director” positions’ salaries recommended to more than double from last year’s allocation and senators were suggested to receive $150 more than they did last year.
It was recommended that the president and vice president receive an annual salary of $6,000 and $5,000, respectively, which is $2,500 more than they received last year.
The 2010-2011 Senate recommended during its final meeting of the year that the president and vice president take a $500 pay cut for the 2011-2012 school year.
The newly created Executive Board positions of chief of staff and local affairs director were suggested to receive $4,500 and $5,000, respectively.
Last year, the “director” positions each received $1,600, while this year, the Director of Public Relations, Director of Administration and Director of Finance are all recommended to collect $4,000. Also, it was proposed the newly created position of Vice President of Policy receive $5,000.
President-elect Joseph Grossman was unavailable to comment on the proposed salary increase.
The only position whose salary was suggested to drop was the Judicial Board members, who were recommended to no longer receive salaries in order to “avoid bias,” according to the budget. Last year, Judicial Board members each received $200 annually.
The proposed allocations of the $85,000 operational budget is nearly identical to the budgets at the West and Polytechnic campuses and is $23,000 more than the budget the most recent ASASUD Senate recommended.
However, simply because the $85,000 budget was passed by the current Senate doesn’t mean ASASUD will be receiving all the requested funds or allocating proposed funds to salary raises. In fact, members are already making adjustments to the budget.
“Nothing is concrete. We’re still figuring things out,” said Danielle Chavez, who was approved as the new Director of Public Relations. “Hopefully we’ll have this revised by the next Senate meeting.”
Grossman said the possible increased funds for Senate members are necessary as the Downtown campus is growing and needs money to sustain that growth.
The Senate also verified members of the executive board and several director positions at the meeting.
Two of the students verified worked against Grossman in this year’s election. Former vice presidential candidate Brittany Morris is now Director of Administration while Sam Tongue was verified as Director of Finance. Tongue worked closely with Andres Cano’s and Morris’ campaign.
Vice President David Bakardjiev will serve as interim ASA Director over the summer until a new director is appointed.
All nominated students were approved unanimously, except for Bakardjiev, for whom University College Senator Erika Vera abstained.
Also, all students who were approved, other than Bakardjiev, are current members of Barrett, the Honors College.
“I think it’s completely a coincidence,” Chavez said. “Barrett students are just involved a lot on campus.”
The Senate also approved the idea of radically changing the structure of ASASUD, which includes implementing all the newly created positions that are in the budget. Also, the new structure would create Ad Hoc committees for various purposes, remove the Director of Parliamentary Procedures position, create student assistant positions and change the structure of the Executive Board and of the government as a whole.
Grossman said the reason for creating these new positions is to increase student interaction with ASASUD and hopefully reach new students.
A couple senators argued this change was unnecessary, but it passed in the end with a vote of 6-2.
Contact the reporter at connor.radnovich@asu.edu
