Amendments to housing, residential councils’ constitution include change to stipends
The On-Campus Housing Council and Resident Government Council, which are some of the governing bodies of the Hill, voted to ratify a new constitution on Feb. 26. The constitution will change student representative stipends amounts. (Daily Bruin file photo)
By Marilyn Chavez-Martinez
May 22, 2019 11:37 p.m.
Residential student officials can receive increased retroactive pay this year following constitutional changes to officials’ stipends.
The On-Campus Housing Council and the Resident Government Council, which oversee student representative governments on the Hill, approved the retroactive pay increase when ratifying their new governing document Feb. 26.
The OCHC is an executive board that oversees UCLA Residential Life governments on the Hill. RGCs are councils under the OCHC which govern individual buildings on the Hill.
Stipends for RGC members increased by $100 per quarter to $400 per quarter, and $500 in the fall if the representative was present at fall quarter trainings.
However, OCHC stipends for some of next year’s representatives decreased. Changes to the OCHC executive board stipends varied per position. The president and director of programming salaries will remain at $2,000 per quarter. The finance director, sustainability director and communications coordinator will receive $250 to $500 less per quarter.
Kameron Carr, president of the Hedrick Hall RGC, said the council will not retract stipends retroactively for this year’s OCHC representatives because the council did not think it would be fair.
Carr said the OCHC and RGC amended the constitution to reflect changes professional staff in ResLife made to the government structure during the summer. ResLife eliminated roughly seven student representative positions per RGC.
Carr said the council increased RGC stipends because the council does not have to pay as many student representative position stipends as it used to.
He also said the OCHC decreased stipends for some of 2019-2020’s representatives because the council thought the positions would not have as many responsibilities as before.
Although the councils ratified the constitution during winter quarter, council members can request retroactive payment if their new stipend is more than their initial stipend. All stipend increases are effective retroactively as of fall 2018, according to the constitution.
Youssouf Djellouli, a second-year mathematics student, said he was not aware of the constitutional changes.
“It’s obviously not a good thing that I didn’t know that this was happening,” Djellouli said. “So I don’t know if that says something (about) me or maybe just the lack of transparency.”
Thomas Brinkop, the treasurer of the Dykstra RGC and a second-year biochemistry student, said the councils held open meetings prior to the constitutional changes and said he thinks the changes were communicated to students on the Hill adequately.
“It’s as public as it can possibly be, but I don’t know, there’s really not that much interest,” Brinkop said.
