Students Contribute Thousands For Little In Return, Meanwhile Group Hopes To Return For "Special Allocation"
Face the State Staff Report
BOULDER - The progressive attitudes of students at the University of Colorado and the political aims of the Colorado Public Interest Research Group seem like a match made in heaven.
But all is not well in this Nader-esq nirvana.
A rift occured last spring when student leaders rejected CoPIRG’s request for $64,000. CU’s Student Group Funding Board denied the request because board members were not convinced student fee dollars previously given to CoPIRG were being devoted to on-campus student efforts, but were rather diverted off campus. Acording to Norm Skarstad, assistant director of CU's Student Organization Finance Office, 80 percent of the money CoPIRG received from CU students went to an account run by the public interest group’s state office in Denver, leading student representatives to question just who ran things on the Boulder campus.
Monies sent to the Colorado state PIRG may have been used for lobbying at the state capitol. According to records at the Secretary of State's office CoPIRG retains a professional lobbyist to influence lawmakers and it is unclear if the hundreds of thousands sent off-campus to the state organization's coffers were offset by expenditures at CU. "Administrative" expenses covered by the transfers are not defined, suggesting at least a portion of the student fees were spent on CoPIRG general fund activities, including lobbyists.
“We were not clear why the money went off campus,” said Andrew Shapiro, the former chapter chairperson of CoPIRG at CU. “In my opinion, if more students knew more about how CoPIRG worked they would feel they are not getting their money’s worth. If CoPIRG CU is working for CU, then a lot more of the mechanics should be run on campus. For $64,000,(CoPIRG) should do more work than they are for CU students.”
Past CoPIRG activities on the Boulder campus have included voter registration drives and lobbying efforts aimed at reducing the cost of textbooks. Prior to the Spring vote, CoPIRG had enjoyed a long run at CU, with students backing a 2003 funding proposal that gave CoPIRG $55,000 a year for its efforts. The four-year spending approval, funded through mandatory student fees paid by each semester, expired this Spring, thus requiring CoPIRG to either forgo future funds or return to student leadership for more money.
“The students (on the funding board) did not feel this was a good value,” Skarstad said. ‘That is what the controversy is about. ... The student government does not like to send money off campus without knowing what it is for.”
Some of the money sent off campus pays for the cost of a full-time advisor and administrative expenses, Skarstad said. “This is where the students felt uncomfortable,” Skarstad said. “(The expenses) seemed too general.”
Shapiro said Denver-based CoPIRG officials had too much control in Boulder. “When I wanted to spend money on something, I had to call the state organizer,” he said. “In effect, these people run the show. CoPIRG should be student run, but that is not the case.”
Veronica Lingo, a campus senator with the CU student government, said she has yet to see evidence that CoPIRG is run by students.
“I need to see that students on campus are making decisions about the CU chapter,” she said.
The current controversy may be put to rest in the fall, according to Elizabeth Crow, a CU student and member of CoPIRG’S state board. She said turnover led to confusion.
“The CoPIRG’s state board on the Boulder campus turned over at the time the student funding board made its decision,” Crow said. “There was confusion as to who was in control of the money and where the money was spent. The majority of our money benefits CU students, that is the bottom line.”
Crow said future CoPIRG-Boulder efforts will focus on proving autonomy from the state organization. “We have to show the funding board that we really use the money ourselves," she said. "We are in the middle of showing that we control our money and we are confident a special allocation will be given to us at the start of next semester.”
While the vast majority of the CU’s CoPIRG cash goes to Denver, Crow said CU students control those funds. “We spend money on a director, who is employed through the CoPIRG office in Denver,” she said. “ That is beneficial to the CU students, because it makes us more effective in running campaigns.”
Note: The original version of this story incorrectly reported that 85 percent of CoPIRG's student group funding was sent to the state; the correct figure is 80 percent. Face the State is committed to accurate reporting; e-mail us at webmaster@facethestate.com with any questions or comments.