CORRECTION: Joe Lopez was not a member of the Board of Directors, he was administrative director for ASI productions. There is no official rule stating that the poll workers of the ASI elections are not allowed to post the names of candidates around the polling stations. But it should be noted that from the writer’s experience, the names candidates, on the ballot or write-in, were not posted around the polls. Also, the ASI Board of Directors are not paid except for the chair and vice-chair on the board, which are not voting members.

By Isa Ghani

Daily Titan Multimedia Editor

I had a budget cut. You had a budget cut. Cal State Fullerton had a budget cut. California had a budget cut. The entire United States of America had a damn budget cut. But CSUF’s Associated Students Inc. sure doesn’t look like they had a budget cut.

I go to class every day. I take part in campus activities. I wear navy and white when our men and women hit the field/court/ice. I also pay about $234 a semester in campus fees, a large part of which goes directly to fund ASI. All I seem to get in return are some free hot dogs once in a while and a pretty decent concert once a year. So, why should I care about ASI as long as they keep me fed and entertained?

Last year, ASI had their general elections, where students of CSUF (that’s you and me) got to vote for who we wanted in positions of power. Yet, until the day before the elections, many students didn’t know the elections existed, who was running, or even if they could run for those positions – and the answer to the last question is: Yes, anyone can run to be president of ASI.

The story was broken by the Daily Titan with the bold headline: “Unopposed” and as a result, three new sets of candidates, comprised of wannabe presidents and vice presidents, submitted their candidacy right before the deadline – which was the very next day.

If students had known that anyone, any Tom, Dick, Harry, Sue, Jane or Sally could run, imagine how many more choices in candidates we would have had for that election.

The two original candidates for president and vice president, Juli Santos and Joe Lopez, who I might add were previously on the ballot unopposed for nearly three months prior to election day. They are both involved in sororities and fraternities on campus. And they also won that election by a landslide.

Due to the late entry into the election of the three other parties, the newcomers or “underdogs” were not on the electronic ballot and had to have their names filled in manually by voters.

The catch was that if there was even one mistake in the names typed in, those votes would go uncounted. For candidates with names like Freddy Fitzgerald and Oscar Ricardo-Herrera (if you spelled his name without the hyphen, that vote would also go uncounted), this might be a little unfair. Poll workers for the ASI elections, while not restricted from providing a list of names of candidates, they opted not to.

The entire situation seems a little biased and confusing. So honestly, why should we care about ASI? Well, let me tell you why; it’s because ASI has control over a multi-million dollar budget, that’s why.

In the spring 2009 semester, ASI had a $7 million budget to support them, campus programs and other student services. That’s more than what a lot of small business firms get to handle.

As a student living through the worst times in Cal State University history, with fees, furloughs and financial problems giving me hell, I would really like to have a say in who’s playing around with $7 million of my school’s money.

As if that wasn’t incentive enough to become a board member of ASI, it is important to note that these individuals decide how much the executive staff is paid and the chair and vice-chair on the board receive $8,160 a semester themselves.

For example, Curtis Schlaufman, the previous president of ASI made more than $18,000 a year, along with priority registration and a cell phone allowance. Apparently there wasn’t enough in the 18,000 bucks to pay for a $50 dollar phone bill.

To make matters more interesting, the previous Board of Directors of ASI was given the option this year to help the school by reducing the executive staff paychecks to help combat the budget crisis.

The logic behind the argument was if they all took a small reduction to their paychecks, they could have more funding for other programs for students. On April 21 of this year, the vote to reduce pay was struck down by a vote of 10 to 2.

Their reasoning behind this was that it wasn’t fair; there were other ways to adjust the budget and that it “devalued the positions.” That last one was a direct quote from Schlaufman himself. Now don’t they sound like a swell bunch of people?

Something else to note; this year our teaching faculty took a 10 percent pay cut on top of nine days of unpaid furlough leave.

Fees were raised 32 percent, and classes were cut. On the other hand, nothing’s changed with ASI since last semester. As of today, the president of ASI still makes $18,700 a year, the vice president makes $17,600, and the executive staff gets a total of $101,573 a year for student leadership positions.

Last semester, before taking on her role as ASI president, Santos did say she agreed with the cutting of ASI Student Leader stipends. But according to the budget, nothing has been changed so far, despite the fact that it could free up nearly $20,000 for use in other areas. So where are the cuts, Santos?

Lopez also mentioned in an interview with the Daily Titan this semester that they aren’t hurting for money as bad as CSUF, as they run on a separate budget. So I say why doesn’t ASI help CSUF out? God knows our university needs all the help it can get.

ASI is autonomous of CSUF; they can do what they want, when they want. They control the majority of funding for clubs and events on campus, as well as make recommendations for the allocation of funding for some sports programs.

ASI is the student body’s equivalent of the government. In short, they are not people you want to mess with.

They have money, power and perks. Who is sitting on the board, and the decisions they make affect students throughout CSUF. ASI matters, and we should be very concerned as to who gets voted into these positions and why.

So why is it that they run in elections unopposed, have amazing salaries for part-time student positions, get autonomous budgets of $7 million a semester, and student voter turnout is still abysmal?

If they were an actual government, people would have cared more and, thus, they would have been forced to become more transparent, more public by now.

ASI isn’t infallible; they make mistakes like all humans. Remember, they are still students too. For example, they once allocated $10,000 instead of the intended $1,000 for the Business Inter-club Council. This went on for two years until it was corrected; $9,000 is a lot of money to not notice is missing for two years.

But Santos and Lopez’s new open door policy makes me proud. Their attempts to get students more involved with the CSU protests make me happy to be a student here at CSUF, in this wonderful country.

I’m from a different culture, yet I seem to care more about American-style democracy than most of the students in my classes. This is something that needs to change; everyone should be concerned with where their money goes, not just what they get for it.

Here’s a hint: Hot dogs and spring concerts aren’t enough.

So go vote Oct. 28 for the new ASI Board of Directors, at least for your personal college if nothing else. I guess I just want you to give more than a damn about who’s running what in your school.