This is a Student Government? Part 2.5

My, what a difference two years can make.

Below is a chart showing ASUN's spending by category from Fiscal Year 2008 (2007-2008). The data is from the Student Government Association Financial Reports for Fiscal Year 2008, available here. These data are publicly available but it does take a little digging and some time distilling into usable and interesting information.


About half of ASUN's spending in FY08 went to paying people. The next chart shows the how much of that salary chuck of the pie went to students vs. faculty.

This chart excludes fringe from the wage total because it is accounted for all together and not separately for students and faculty. In FY08, 44 percent of ASUN's wage spending went to faculty and staff (i.e. not students). As a reminder, in Fiscal Year 2010 (next year), the spending will basically flip-flop.

Faculty spending will increase by 12 percentage points at the expense of student wage spending.

How Does ASUN Compare to UNLV
One would expect the two university's undergraduate student governments to be roughly equivalent in terms of wage spending. Using FY08 data, below is CSUN's (UNLV's undergraduate student government) spending by category.

Immediately apparent is how CSUN spends much less on wages. Let's see where the difference lies: in student wage spending or in faculty spending.


Ouchie! CSUN spent $147,766 less on professional staff than ASUN did.

In FY08, UNLV had nearly 22,000 undergraduates (link); UNR had 12,660 (link). How is it that UNR, with nearly 10,000 fewer undergraduates, needs to spend 1.7 times what UNLV does on adminstratative staff?

An anonymous commenter on our last post stated "the university will not allow ASUN to exist without what they deem as proper advisement and some form of university oversight." So, answer me this: why does UNR's undergrad student government need practically triple the staff UNLV's undergrad student government does (considering UNR has 10,000 fewer students)?

I see a few possibilities:

• CSUN is grossly understaffed with professionals
• ASUN has become grossly bloated with professional staff
• CSUN is much more efficient with its staff than ASUN is

Two of those possibilities don't look so good for ASUN.

This is a Student Government? Part Two

In our first part on the FY 2010 ASUN Budget proposed by President Eli Reilly, we just published some numbers taken from the budget. We now present the pretty charts. The source of our figures is the President's proposed FY 2010 budget (link).

First a note on the figures: the figures are derived by adding the base pay (wage) to the associated fringe benefit cost (fringe) to get a total wage figure. The two figures are inseparable so we count them together for the purposes of our analysis. Finally, wage spending accounts for nearly 57 percent of ASUN's total spending.

First up is a simple one: student versus administrative pay.



When looking only at wage figures, administrative faculty, classified staff, and graduate assistants make 58 percent of all the wages in ASUN. In the next fiscal year, nine people will make nearly $6 of every $10 in wages paid.

This next chart provides detail in the student wage category (click on chart for larger version).



The single largest chunk of student wages goes to not executive pay or Senate pay but to student administrative pay (secretaries, accounting clerks, etc.). If you do the math, ASUN Officer pay compared with all other student compensation is only 31 percent (for 55 officers).

The Sagebrush is not included among the wages for students because it is entirely self-supporting and does not receive a (direct) subsidy in the way that the three other publications do.

The last chart shows proportions of officer pay.



In both Charts 2 and 3 above, Senior Executive includes the President, Vice President, Directors of Departments (Clubs and Organizations, Programming, Homecoming), Public Relations Assistant, Attorney General, Chief of Staff, Archivist, and fringe for those positions.

The Senate figure includes the Speaker of the Senate. As far as pay disparity is concerned, 22 officials (or 40 percent of the officers) make 21 percent of the wages for officers.

Draw whatever conclusions you will from these data, but the one point you should take away from this is this: at what point does a student government stop becoming a student government, as far as wages are concerned? Professional vs. student at 58-42 percent seems way messed up to me. 25-75 might be more reasonable.

This is a Student Government?

We wanted to get this out there and worry about making it look pretty later. The charts really make the point better than plain text does. Expect updates.

ASUN Budget for Fiscal Year 2010 (proposed):

Student wages, excluding publications and Campus Escort: $272,783.50
...including Campus Escort: $351,533.50
...including publications (except Sagebrush): $392,723.50

Administrative, classified, and graduate assistant wages: $550,736

Total of all wages paid by ASUN: $937,533.50

Wage figures include the actual wage and the required associated fringe benefits expense.

Sagebrush is excluded because it is off the ASUN budget and does not receive a subsidy from ASUN.

This is a student government, right?