The Graduate and Professional Student Association delayed the decision to fund the Daily Lobo for a second time.
Erin Phillips, GPSA Theatre and Dance representative, proposed to give $15,803.25 to the student newspaper during GPSA’s meeting on Saturday. This amount is equivalent to $2.85 from each of the 5,545 graduate students.
“I would like to see funding happen, but obviously some council members don’t agree with me,” said Danny Hernandez, GPSA chair.
Some representatives claimed that graduate students don’t read the Lobo as much as
undergraduates do, and therefore shouldn’t fund the paper.
“We always have money, but we probably don’t want to spend money on this,” said Sean Donnelly, GPSA finance chair.
He said graduate students shouldn’t decide to allocate money to the Daily Lobo until they have secured their own budget. He said he is working on an up-to-date budget for the next meeting.
Hernandez said GPSA members will request that a representative from the Daily Lobo present GPSA members with reasons why the newspaper needs graduate student money.
Jim Fisher, Daily Lobo business manager, said the newspaper may go into debt by the end of this year, although he is not sure by
how much.
“Our advertising revenue will probably not meet the budget for this year,” Fisher said.
He said ASUNM funding makes up 5 percent of the Lobo’s budget, and the rest comes from advertising revenue.
Phillips said she tried to pass legislation to give the Lobo graduate student funds when the undergraduate student government, ASUNM, asked for help funding the newspaper.
Alicia Barry, ASUNM senator, said ASUNM doesn’t want to cut funding unless other groups can give funds to the Daily Lobo, including GPSA and Faculty Senate. She said she will be meeting with representatives from these groups within the next few weeks to see if they can contribute.
Barry said ASUNM can’t reduce funding unless a bill passes through ASUNM Senate, and all undergraduates have the opportunity to vote on the issue.
GPSA won’t decide whether to give the Daily Lobo money until its next meeting, which hasn’t been scheduled yet.
“I think, ultimately, we’ll choose the best option for all graduate students,” she said. “It just might not be the full amount that we proposed today.”
Fisher said GPSA used to fund the Lobo, but about nine years ago the money stopped coming in. He said the graduate student council used to give about $1,500 annually to the newspaper.
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Donnelly estimated that GPSA has about $44,000 left in the budget. He said that until the GPSA knows its exact budget, it wouldn’t be responsible to vote on the memorandum. He also said a budget from the Daily Lobo is needed so students can see exactly where their money would be going.
“I would strongly advise that we know what we’re spending money on because we’ve got to sustain ourselves,” he said.
