Editorial: USAC bylaw amendment tying pay to inflation is irresponsible

After almost half a year of evasion, vocal student backlash and halfhearted deliberation, the Undergraduate Students Association Council is at long last bringing forward a bylaw amendment that would prevent future elected officials from raising their own stipends.

Commendable as it is that council finally took responsibility to resolve the conflict of interest created by their self-awarded pay raise, the suggestion from two councilmembers that stipends be tied to inflation is an ill-conceived move that would grant overly generous hikes to future councilmembers’ pay.

USAC President John Joanino and Cultural Affairs Commissioner Jessica Trumble suggested a provision to the amendment that would link stipends to the Consumer Price Index, a measure of prices for consumer goods. Doing so would piggyback another pay raise on top of an otherwise reasonable and much-needed amendment.

Councilmembers are currently deciding on the precise language of the proposed amendment and whether it will be tied to CPI when it is brought to council. It could go to council as early as next week.

Tying councilmember stipends to the rate of inflation makes little sense considering that most student fees are not tied to inflation. Stipends should depend on the student fees from which they are drawn, not on the state of the market at large.

The argument for raising stipends in the first place was a simple and convincing one: We should make positions in student government accessible to the entire student body, regardless of their ability to work for an unreasonably low recompense.

But that does not entitle the council to spend money it does not have.

To illustrate: The council’s stipends, after this summer’s increase, is $672 a month. In three years time, at a three percent rate of inflation (just less than the CPI increase from 2010 to 2011, the most recent year for which data is available) stipends would increase to $734 a month, a $62 increase. Assuming a similar CPI, in 15 years, councilmembers would be making nearly $1340 a month.

Multiply that by 13 councilmembers receiving a stipend, plus other positions with stipends, and it amounts to a substantial draw on student fees, which remain static unless changed by a student referendum.

Stipends should not be tied to inflation, but should be raised as appropriate given the level of student fees. The raise that USAC approved over the summer was based on the minimum wage, a wise benchmark to ensure the accessibility of government positions.

As Roy Champawat, director of the UCLA Student Union, told Daily Bruin news contributor Hee Jae Choi last week, “minimum wage is the standard that has been defined in our society as the rate tied to work, whereas (the) consumer price index is a different measure.”

The student body has seen what happens when the council raises stipends without considering the consequences, as allocations to student groups dipped in the fall. If this measure passes as part of an amendment, the council risks again prioritizing the pocketbook over principles of good governance.

If USAC seeks to avoid the chaos that has surrounded the stipend issue this year, it must ensure that the amendment itself is sound.

Undergraduate student leadership has neglected to reverse its mistake for months, and it should wait just a little longer to present responsible reform.