Hey buddy, can you spare $554,000?
That is what the senators of Associated Students of UNM are asking students for today, and I would gladly give it to them.
I would vote for increasing student fees from $14 to $20. Just keep the Daily Lobo out of it.
The most perplexing issue about Amendment Four is that cutting student fees to the Student Publications Board would even come up.
When first passed through the Steering and Rules Committee, the amendment adjusted the percentage of fees to eight percent so that the amount Student Publications gets would not be changed. Then, Sen. Grant Nichols decided that since the Daily Lobo has too much money, the amendment should be changed to cut roughly $13,000 from the Daily Lobo.
So, if it passes, ASUNM would receive about $540,000 with the student fee increases alone, up from $385,029. What's another $14,352? The Senate's budget will be $554,144, only about $100,000 less than the Daily Lobo's operating budget.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
So why put Student Publications, and the Daily Lobo, on the stand again to defend itself from a funding cut? I can't answer that, but it sounds to me like somebody has an axe to grind.
Nichols argues that because the Daily Lobo is "operating at their budget" it won't affect the newspaper. He fails to take into account that the art of business is not a stable one.
As advertising representative David Briones so eloquently said in his column on Monday, the time when the newspaper would need that "rainy day" fund has come. The effects of the Sept. 11 attacks accelerated what was already a downturn in the economic cycle. That $380,000 surplus won't be a surplus for long.
And while some people want to criticize the Daily Lobo for "bringing in" more than $300,000 in revenue, they fail to see the hard work and sweat the people put in to "bring" that in. Every day, we work to produce the best product available that students can read and enjoy. We don't always do it right, but we give it everything we have.
Yet, these senators want accountability. They want to know why their money is going to a $380,000 surplus. Well, it isn't. It's in these words they are reading and in the product they are holding. It's in the stories we do and the late nights we trudge through to make this newspaper appear five days a week. If that's not good enough., then maybe we ought to take a weekend trip to Las Vegas with the money.
After all, ASUNM is making a $150,000 gamble that $14,352 is worth more than $554,000.
by James Barron
Daily Lobo Guest Columnist
James Barron, former editor in chief of the Daily Lobo, is a senior majoring in journalism.
