The proposal to move funding oversight from ASB to ASO was announced during the Academic Senate meeting at El Camino College in the Distance Education Room on Tuesday, Nov. 20 from 12:30 to 2 p.m.
This proposition will give ASO, Associated Student Organization, 65 percent of control that ASB, Auxiliary Service Board has of the student activities fee.
According to the ASB Memorandum, by Gregory J. Toya, this matter was identified in Spring 2018 by the ASO when it researched a potential fee increase and practices at other community colleges.
As the ASB reviewed the California Education Code and Student Fee Handbook, they questioned whether EC met those requirements.
“ED Code requires that students if there is an optional fee, have oversight for that fee and for whatever reason in the past when we established our award policies and administrative procedures we established a system that said that students had oversight for just 35 percent,” Kristie Daniel-Digregorio, president of the Academic Senate said.
With the California Education Code stating that students must have procedures established by the student body organization, ASO is seeking 100 percent control.
“What it mainly concerns is just to transfer the student’s activities fee revenue into full control for ASO,” Wiley Wilson, director of Academic Affairs for ASO said. “Cause we only have 35 percent control and we are trying to go 100 percent control.”
As ASO continues to start conversations about this, Daniel-Digregorio believes it is a great opportunity for students to get involved.
“This is a really nice, professional development and opportunity for students where they get to develop their skills,” Daniel-Digregorio said. “Managing a significant budget, managing a consultative process, that’s what they’re proposing to establish, a consultative process where proposals come to them and then by using clear criteria that they’ve established previously then they review those proposals to see if they are worthy of the funding.”
Wilson also believes it is a great opportunity for students because he believes their voices will be heard.
“We’ll actually have more of a say, more control on this campus than what we have,” Wilson said. “This is going to be a very good chance for us to gain everything that is necessary for students.”
Though this proposal has just started a conversation, Wilson isn’t sure when the transition will happen but hopes to have it within a few years.
“We are planning on having everything approved to be applied next year, but if anything, we are going to start the process of getting actual full control of understanding how to program everything and do everything that we can in order for these programs in two to three years,” Wilson said.
