Editor,
The front page article of the Nov. 7 paper should come as a shock to all students. The crux of the matter is that the Associated Students of the University of New Mexico appears to be doing little more than funding itself and its own extravagances rather than appropriating funds to the students that it claims to be serving. The majority of the money, which comes directly from student fees, does not make it back to the students, who are being milked like cash cows.
It would almost be comical to chalk this up as negligence on behalf of ASUNM, but the truth is that they know exactly where this money goes and how little there is to show for it. In particular, the salaries of both the president and vice president together total $20,400 plus covering their tuition. Each individual student at UNM pays $20 per year to ASUNM, which means that it takes 1,020 students just to pay these two positions that claim they value nothing more than serving their students.
If they truly want to show an honest commitment to service above the dime, I call for both the president and vice president to forfeit their pay, or at least a partial amount of it, as a show of good faith to the students of UNM. Additionally, there are smaller offenses that add up in the budget, such as the refreshments for meetings, which came to $4,017 in the last count.
A trimming of the fiscal fat must be done, and the onus is on the executives of ASUNM to spearhead this movement towards modesty in spending.
Respectfully,
Tom Stivers
Daily Lobo reader
