At a time when budgets are tightening, members of the UNC-system Association of Student Governments voted to increase stipends for four of its officers.
The $1 annual fee all UNC students pay should not have been used to increase the salaries of these officers.
While two UNC-CH delegates rightly voted against the change, nearly all of the other delegates voted for it.
Four association officers were being paid less than other ASG officers in similar positions. It is association policy that officers with similar responsibilities must get paid the same amount.
Regardless of how the difference in stipends managed to slip by, the change should have brought the pay officers received down to the level of their lower-paid colleagues.
These stipends should be reflective of the amount of work that officers put into ASG-related business. It is unreasonable to significantly increase their salaries while the amount of work remains the same.
Officers are already reimbursed for travel costs and other costs associated with ASG.
If the goal of the stipend increase was to maintain the equality of the positions, the money would have been better suited going towards the reimbursement fund.
The UNC delegates were sound in their decision to vote against the change. Students pay their fees to ASG under the assumption that the money will come back to their home schools in the form of projects and programs that benefit the student body.
