Varney, Sewell, and other leaders over the past years have failed — epically — at changing the perception of ASM on campus. Gallagher seems to have a good head on his shoulders and appears to have the backing of numerous ASMers. They issued this press release which I expect to make both campus papers tomorrow. For accuracy, I will post text directly from the release. Anyone who has read this blog sees numerous points I strongly agree with, including the press shop and Presidential system. I’m proud that some members of ASM have responded in this way and it is a serious step forward. The key is now to act on these claims.
While I know it’s not a broad systemic-ASM change, I hope the 15th Session of ASM will take the new student group formed in the wake of the CNI rebellion and make ASM a serious force in the city. That’s a topic for another day, of course.
Edit- I should note, this was signed by an array of ASMers, including Pavlic, Wright, Wiegand, etc. It’s not just Gallagher, but he’s taking what appears to be a leading public role in the clean up of ASM, so I want to give him some political capital as a result of this positive first step. What’d I’d say to other ASMers is “Sorry, not everyone can pad their resume all of the time.” Lulz.
Newly elected representatives of the Associated Students of Madison’s 15th Session are prepared to address failures of student government. Specifically, ASM has failed to execute specific and unified campaigns that address issues of higher education. Second, ASM has failed to seek appropriate input from the student body on its campaigns and services. Third, ASM has failed to provide a viable forum to discuss and address current issues affecting the campus.
Representatives-elect of the 15th Session acknowledge the internal issues student government faces, and we have outlined an agenda for the future of ASM. We believe that the poor attendance at the “State of the ASM” event is indicative of deeper systemic issues that need to be addressed. ASM must reform its internal structure in order to increase its capacity to work on campus issues and regain legitimacy. Therefore, we provide five commitments to the student body, which the 15th Session will accomplish before the end of the year.
We are committed to:
1) Focus on issues of higher education, specifically those elements impacting the quality of education at UW-Madison;
2) Implement by-law changes requiring Student Council approval on ASM campaigns and initiatives;
3) Create a press office to handle public relations;
4) Create and implement a timeline for the initiation of a presidential system to be affirmed during ASM’s fall election;
5) Implement a budget cap to keep ASM expenditures in check.
Significant changes to ASM’s current structure are necessary in order to increase legitimacy and promote accountability. The commitments by these representatives are only the first few steps in an effort to make ASM a legitimate student government. These improvements will increase ASM’s capacity to work on student issues but additional reforms must be made in order to increase the functionality and efficiency of student government.
[It continues...]
This plan is NOT an ASM endorsement, nor is it an official ASM declaration, but rather represents the commitment of individual 15th session representatives to address issues of ASM’s legitimacy on campus and to better serve the needs of students.
Seeing the #1, it looks like my proposed “ASM solidarity with bloggers” resolution is now shot. Damn.
32 Comments
April 20, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Niiiiiiiiiiice! And here I was thinking it would be Jeff Wright. Good choice. Gallagher definitely has the street cred.
April 20, 2008 at 9:55 pm
“Let’s see if Gallagher can raise ASM from the dead.”
…please, like he could do it by himself. You have no idea the amount of input he receives from other people. He doesn’t pull the strings.
April 20, 2008 at 9:56 pm
No doubt this is the case, but he’s a very public figure that I can attribute success and failure to.
With a Presidential figure, this will change.
April 20, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I still don’t understand why 15 people don’t run for ASM pledging to A) cut seg fees in half and B) if they fail at that promise to try their hardest to disband ASM.
Would this not get the full support of Student Voters?
April 20, 2008 at 10:09 pm
ASM elections aren’t deliberative. As I have argued — and others as well — it’s more of an “activiation” game, whereby you mobilize exactly however many people you need to win. Most are your friends.
Only a handful of people vote in ASM elections on the merits of candidates, and thus, we have a system that reflects what I argue is the will of the campus elite/student organizations who profit off their “victories” from the system (e.g. ISO’s ISP resolution that 4% of campus voted on).
It’s not a mandate and quite frankly, shouldn’t be legitimate. I think ASM ought to install a 10% benchmark or consider the elections void. Something like that.
Anyway, the point is: while it might be popular, it really doesn’t matter because only those who know how to play in the system can win, not those with the “best” ideas, as a deliberative model is intended to create.
-D
April 20, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I think one of the most striking examples of ASM incompetence is that raising voter turnout in elections to 10% would be considered a success.
When you set the bar low, its not very hard to exceed it.
April 20, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Oh wow. foot in my mouth. I thought he was just appointed chair. Oh wow. *puts party favors away*
April 20, 2008 at 10:30 pm
He should be. Damn it.
April 20, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Thanks for the endorsement.
Even though I mailed out the release, it was the collective work of Jess Pavlic, Brittany Wiegand, Jeff Wright, Kurt Gosselin, Adam Sheka, and me.
What I hope makes these promises different from other promises of reform is the fact that a strong core of individuals with the experience necessary are committed to this happening.
I understand the need for a public figure to praise and demonize. But until we do get a president to be that figurehead, the praise and the criticism should be passed around to all responsible.
Lastly, I would appreciate some constructive criticism of our current plan. What are things that we missed on this list? (I am sure there are many) Also, are these points solid? Are we overlooking anything with these initiatives?
April 20, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I think that increasing voter turnout in elections should be a priority. While better PR and a presidential system might help, they don’t directly address the problem of such low voter turnout.
April 20, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I know as a student, the attendance issues particularly concern me, not the State of ASM debacle, but the attendance of last years meetings. There really needs to be some way to hold representatives accountable to at least show up.
Some suggestions would be
Mandatory attendance quota and if a representative fails that either
1. They can’t run next year
2. Or (more harsh) removed during the year
Also I am under the impression Student Council members do receive a salary and if thats true there should be a correlation of how much of it they can receive based on how often they show up.
This really shouldn’t be an issue but since it is, it needs to be addressed.
April 20, 2008 at 11:08 pm
How much does ASM spend now on its internal operations? Switching to a press shop seems like it could cost more, but it might be money well-spent if done effectively.
Student government costs money. Spend what it takes, and of course not a cent more. ASM overall spends a lot of money on all of its activities, and if you underfund some critical part of it you’ll wind up wasting a lot more money overall. If the budget cap is just to “restore legitimacy” then drop it.
April 20, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Alex,
That’s a good list. Hopefully, by December it is well on its way to completion.
April 20, 2008 at 11:39 pm
The budget cap is an idea to be set in place for three primary reasons:
1) Maintaining a budget cap will require ASM to reflect on its priorities annually and determine which programs should/need funding increases to operate effectively and which ones can function at current funding levels.
2) This process of self-reflection will also direct ASM to reevaluate ineffective programs and to reallocate funding to those programs which are more effective or more prioritized without passing an extra bill to “taxpayers,” the students.
3) A budget cap is also part of implementing solid budgeting practices and keeping ASM accountable.
April 21, 2008 at 12:06 am
First, my hope is that we complete it all by the end of first semester. I am going to push for it very strongly, especially since second semester gets bogged down in budgets.
Higher voter turnout is our perpetual goal. At the end of the day, voter turnout is the most honest evaluator of ASM’s legitimacy on campus. If students feel like ASM affects their lives and therefore worth voting.
So I agree that we need to work for higher voter turnout. Our objective is that we can get a higher turnout by working on issues that matter to students.
The first problem we need to address is ASM’s capacity to even work on these issues.
As for attendance at meetings. This will certainly be an issue that we will address in the first few meetings. I don’t think it is really press release worthy, but it is a major problem with ASM student council.
As for the budget cap, I think the previous response nailed it.
As for Erik’s question, ASM internal budget is confusing. The total that goes to ASM is about $1.5 million. This does not include the GSSF. About half of the is direct support for student organizations. ASM’s specific operational budget is about $300 K. This includes 3 unclassified staff and all the stipends as well as basic operational costs.
SSFC also has their own internal budget which includes one classified and one unclassified staff. Then we just had to create a budget for maintenance and custodial at the Student Activities Center. And the Student Judiciary has a budget, which essentially covers elections.
It would be tough for a group of students to get elected and cut seg fees in half. We cut about $1 m from the GSSF last year, about $700 K this year and I anticipate a bit more next year.
I hope that answers all the points people brought up.
April 21, 2008 at 12:40 am
I just MONSTERBATED to that last string of comments – scary!
April 21, 2008 at 5:47 am
Alex,
Do you have a plan to stop the pending Zombie invasion?
Thanks,
-CB
April 21, 2008 at 7:03 am
If only,
I would say that ASM is very week in the field of zombie invasions.
April 21, 2008 at 7:06 am
New proposition: seg fees for shotguns.
They’ll all thank us when nobody eats our brains.
April 21, 2008 at 7:41 am
I have spend so much time working on ASM, I have forgotten how to spell (weak)…
Seg fees for shotguns. That is a novel proposal. I think it wouldn’t go far with system, but then again, once zombies have eaten their brains, I don’t think it would matter.
April 21, 2008 at 8:55 am
Alex, I’m confused what you’re going to try and cap. Allocable seg fees overall? Just the “ASM” 1.5 million? Just the ASM 300K for ASM internal operations?
I think budget caps are a gimmick. The anonymous poster listed three reasons for a budget cap. Those three things should be part of any government operation, not just because there’s a cap. Plus, if something comes up, I want you to have the power to raise seg fees. If there’s something worth funding, either shuffle funding around, or if you can make a good case and communicate it to the student body, raise seg fees. A budget cap is just an admission of “we can’t make hard choices”.
But maybe ASM needs the training wheels of a budget cap.
Here’s some more reform ideas: eliminate the SSFC, or shift the ASM support of student orgs to also be a responsibility of the SSFC. Have one source of financing. The multiplicity of funding paths is the hardest thing about ASM to understand.
Eliminate the student judiciary, or change its name. From a branding perspective, nothing makes ASM look high-school-sillier than the SJ titles. Make it an “appeals” subcommittee of the council, with the ultimate appellate body be the full council.
On tuition bills, break out the allocable and non-allocable parts of seg fees. You want ASM accountable? Bypass the bursars office entirely, and make me write a check to ASM once a semester.
April 21, 2008 at 12:25 pm
The budget cap refers to the ASM internal budget–not seg fees overall. This year, the cap was specifically for the programming and administrative parts of the ASM budget. The third part, direct services to student orgs, are things like salaries for financial specialists (who administer funding for both GSSF groups and RSOs), event, travel, operations grants, sexual assault crisis services, etc… All things that directly benefit students (talk to the hundreds of organizations and people served by this money before you make the argument that these don’t directly benefit students). Next year, maybe the cap would include the overall budget.
You’re right, ASM shouldn’t have to put a budget cap into formal legislation in order for it to be done. At the same time, the reality of the situation is that you have a lot of competing priorities that each have some degree of merit. If student council had a strategic plan that delineated our priorities, it would be easier to choose which of the increases fit with our plan. Hopefully the 15th session will create such a plan as soon as possible; I would like to see one voted on and in place by our summer meeting. However, even with such a plan, it would be beneficial to have some established budget cap–even if we were to say x, y, and z are our priorities, what would be the limit of priorities we could fund? A budget cap puts a limit to the number of priorities we commit to financially.
As someone who sits on SSFC and has my own committee within ASM that funds registered student orgs, I strongly disagree with your idea to combine the two committees. The criteria for both are starkly different. Besides the fact that the time required to receive both is significant (SSFC T/R from 6:30-midnight and Finance on Tuesdays from 6:30-11… if you’ve sat through any of these meetings I don’t think you would argue that they’re inefficient), the differences between what each funds are so great that it necessitates two different committees. The SSFC funds direct services to students, the finance committee funds registered student organizations event, travel, and operational needs. The multiplicity of funding paths around campus is confusing, I agree, and there was recently a position created within the Student Organization Office to help organizations with this. It’s fairly new, so we have yet to see how much this helps clarify things for groups. However, the funding streams (of which there are 2, 3 if you include ancillary.. which doesn’t apply to most) within ASM aren’t too difficult to grasp if one takes just a little bit of time to look into it. I have experience with hundreds of RSOs that seem to understand the streams fairly well.
Maybe SJ is a joke. At the same time, by having a specific committee that is separate from the rest of ASM (they cannot hold other paid or appointed positions) you get a group of students that specialize in one area, and aren’t influenced by other areas of involvement within the organization.
April 21, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Eric,
My budgetary experience with ASM has convinced me that ASM needs budget caps to allow them to access their own priorities. ASM consistently sees double digits growth in their budgets. I certainly do not think this matches double digit growth in productivity.
Because ASM is allowed to set their budget and then access the fee from that budget, there is no incentive for ASM to ever talk about priorities. I believe one of the consequences of this method is that ASM very rarely (if ever) has a discussion of priorities. Rather, when ASM decides that it wants to do something, it adds a new line in the budget.
By forcing a budgetary cap, it forces conversations about priorities. If ASM really wants to pursue a new campaign, initiative, etc, it must be willing to sacrifice something else.
I think that one of the biggest faults of ASM’s structure is it attempts to be all things to all people and consequentially is nothing to no one. ASM certainly suffers from scarcity in terms of human capital, there is no reason that we think that we can do everything we budget for, and traditionally we don’t. ASM consistently underspends because they do not have the resources to implement all the lofty plans which are built into the budget.
Gestina, Brittany, and I pursued a budget cap this past year. Without this cap, ASM would have passed a budget with an 18% increase. The increase this year was still significant, but this cap forces ASM to have these discussions. Unfortunately, we implemented the cap after the budget was almost completed. If ASM would have had a cap from the beginning, we would expect it to foster even more discussion of priorities.
This year, we capped the programming and administrative budgets of ASM (about $300 k). We did not cap the support for student organizations. Part of the cuts in the GSSF is a reinvestment in grants to student organizations. We cut about $670,000 from the GSSF, but put another $300,000 in event and travel grants. This will make this fund more viable to large student organizations to reduce the temptation for large student orgs to try to get funding from the GSSF.
For next year, there is no reason to see this increase again. I anticipate that the cap will be for the entire ASM budget. (about $1 million). I would also encourage SSFC and SJ to cap their budgets, although there is a lot less slush in those budgets.
As for your other suggestions: ASM cannot combine finance and SSFC. The work load is too great. As we simplify the system we may be able to move in that direction. Currently that is impossible.
You can change the name of SJ, but you can’t get rid of it. Per the Southworth decision, proper checks are necessary to ensure that students are not allocating resources subjectively. It may look high-schoolish, but it is necessary to maintain the segregated fee system. If ASM is going to continue to fund student orgs, then SJ, or some other independent judiciary, must exist.
Seg fees will now be listed on the tuition bill. If seg fees were optional we would lose it all. How would you stop students from using services funded with allocable segregated fees. Would you check IDs every time a student goes to GUTS or Legal Information Center? How would you stop students from attending the hundreds of events funded with event grants? (e.g. All-Campus Party, Hip-Hop conference, etc.) If seg fees were optional we would lose bus pass. Student would end up paying full price for a bus ride, rather than the 95.2¢ secured with the metro pass. We would also lose SafeRide and the campus bus program. When we can think of a way to appropriate convey to students what they receive from seg fees and we figure out how to only allow those who pay into the system to benefit from it, then we can push for an opt-out system.
April 21, 2008 at 1:18 pm
6) Increase Voter Turnout.
April 21, 2008 at 1:21 pm
nice analysis bpb…. oops, I mean Alex
April 21, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Alex, I’m sorry I wasn’t clear, I’m not proposing a wide-scale opt-out system for individual services funded by seg fees beyond what already exists today. I do think a better breakdown of segfees on tuition bills would be helpful – not all the way down to $0.17 for GUTS, $0.05 for the Legal Information Center etc, but a higher level of $150ish Union, $150ish UHS, $25ish Rec Sports, $30ish Allocable seg fees, or whatever the actual numbers are. Even if it was only “$X for Allocable, $Y for everything else.” Your $670K cut translates to about an $8 cut off my semester bill, which completely disappears in all of the other increases.
If the SSFC and Finance committees can’t be combined because of workload, fair enough. However, is it wise to have one be (partially) separately elected, and the other entirely from within the council?
Thanks to both you and Brittany for such long and detailed responses. This is the sort of information that will hopefully become more common with ASM.
April 21, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I guess we could revisit the composition of both committees, but neither is appointed entirely from council. SSFC has both elected seats and seats from council, as does my committee (4 appointed from council, and 5 at-large seats for anyone who applies through nominations board).
April 21, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Suchita thinks that the campus relations committee is awesome.
Paid for by Swiftboat Badgers for Truth
May 2, 2008 at 4:30 pm
[...] Jeff Wright, were clearly the ones who were pushing the hardest for ASM reform. Gallagher was even the CB anointed leader of the reform movement. Jeff Wright in his interview on Smathers’ radio show this morning called him a “key [...]
June 14, 2008 at 2:30 am
[...] any of the momentum that was building for reform into more student engagement and involvement. The letter pledging reform was a good step, but ASM has taken several steps back since then. Gallagher’s resignation, [...]
October 28, 2008 at 2:28 am
[...] This blogger very publicly supported the ASM reform efforts last spring, cautiously observing ASM’s activity over the past few months. I feel that I have been judicious, with ASM insiders agreeing about the absurdity of the Qdoba quote and damaging impact of the continued low voter turn out. Trying to aggregate opinions on the matter, my non scientific, but still representative of the aware populous has concluded with stunning reflections that ASM has not moved forward. No amount of media bias can change the results. 100% of people (with a triple digit voter total) disagreed with ASM election strategies and an extremely high number were disappointed with the state of reforms in the wake of a lower voter turn out. None of that reaction required framing from a Clegg, Craver, the Daily Car – er oh wait, no, they don’t seem to editorialize on ASM, or Smathers. Objective statements or data were provided, and people outright rejected the ASM status quo. No editorial board influenced the outcome. [...]
February 25, 2009 at 5:34 pm
[...] group represented current ASM leadership. They provided the constitution as a component of a larger reform package. This was a package at least preliminarily drawn up by Brittany, Jeff, Kurt, and [...]