Two months ago, Cal State Long Beach students voted to approve a $16 Associated Students Inc. fee increase, and last week, the ASI Senate approved a 2014-15 consolidated operating budget that includes increasing executives’ salaries by 33 percent.
If the budget is approved by Interim President Donald Para, the ASI president, vice president and treasurer would go from earning an annual income of $16,752 to an annual income of $22,392. Additionally, ASI appointed executive officers, the chief of staff and chief programming officer, will see a pay raise from $14,157 to $19,032.
Following Tuesday’s Daily 49er article about the increase to the part-time executive payroll budget, ASI Executive Director Richard Haller sent an email to ASI members to clarify that the salary increase would not be funded from the $1.1 million generated by the $16 increase, but that instead, the new revenue would go toward existing programs that would in turn free up old money to pay for the salary increase.
So technically, the fee increase is not going towards executive pay. However, ASI has only one budget that includes both old money and new money, so drawing lines between the two seems irrelevant when the money is collectively used as a whole.
Technicalities and politics aside, the $16 fee increase is what’s enabling the ASI executives to receive a 33% pay raise, one that some ASI executives feel is “necessary.” ASI Treasurer Agatha Gucyski said it is “incredible how underpaid” they are.
Keep in mind, in addition to the $16,752 the executives currently make, they are also given up to $300 monthly on a meal card and their tuition is waived by the Office of the President.
That being said, we’re not entirely opposed to the pay increase. We understand that ASI executives’ last salary increase was in 2007-08 and a pay raise is probably overdue. We can also admit that ASI officers work long, hard hours and are probably not compensated for all the work they do, but a 33 percent increase seems a little over the top.
To be fair, the executives do not create the budget, and ASI President John Haberstroh said they had no knowledge of the pay raise when they were advocating for the $16 increase. Additionally, we want to acknowledge that the fee is being used as promised, to bring a 24-hour study center to campus in the fall, among other things.
The increase would also put ASI in compliance with a policy that establishes ASI executives’ pay based on the estimated cost of living, one that hasn’t been followed since 2007-08 because of budget cuts as a result of the economic downturn.
One last thing, the $20,000 that was moved into the part-time executive payroll budget accounts for less than 2 percent of the $1.1 million that is being generated by the fee increase.
All things considered, though, it’s the sizable amount of the salary increase that raises a lot of questions, especially for those students who voted in favor of the fee increase.
In politics, perception is everything, and a $400 to $450 monthly increase is an uncomfortably large sum of money, considering it is coming out of the students’ pockets.
We would support a small ASI pay raise but not one of this scale. While the executives might not have actually drafted the budget, it still doesn’t look good when you consider the timing in which it came.
Let’s not get too greedy here, politicians already have a bad enough rap as it is.
And, don’t the ASI Executive staff get to register for classes before everyone else? Why don’t we give them a car too, after all, they need it to get to meetings and such. This pay raise is only just the beginning of teaching these “want to be Politicians” how to tax the common people and not feel bad about it. They are learning early to promise the masses “Chocolate ice cream” in order to get voted in. And, keep distracting them with green issues, so that the people won’t see the taxes coming.