Although the Student Association bylaws permit the Executive Boards of Binghamton University’s eight residential communities to allocate themselves stipends from their own budgets, the leadership of Off Campus College Council (OC3) is the only E-Board whose members opt to pay themselves.

The E-Board positions for College-in-the-Woods, Dickinson Community, Hinman College, Mountainview College, Newing College, Hillside Community and Susquehanna Community currently are not paid positions.

Karl Bernhardsen, vice president of finance for the SA, said OC3’s president, vice president, programming director and treasurer have been receiving stipends for at least the past four years.

The E-Board introduced a new position this semester, the publicity director, who does not currently receive a stipend.    

“Any community can receive stipends if they put it into their constitution,” Bernhardsen said.

When the SA Financial Council (FinCo) and Assembly set the SA’s budget each spring for the following academic year, any student group, not just the community governments, are permitted to make a formal appeal for stipends, Bernhardsen said.

Nicholas Valiando, former president of OC3 and current vice speaker of the Assembly, explained the process by which each E-Board can receive stipends.

“The exact amount that the [OC3] Executive Board members will receive is voted on every year by the active members when the budget is presented at the OC3 general meeting,” Valiando said. “The [OC3] constitution does not allow for the payment to exceed $750, as stated in the constitution’s by-laws. In practice the E-Board members receive [less than] that amount, in the past generally $500 [per semester].”

Michael Wong, the current president of OC3, receives a stipend and said he was unaware he would get a stipend at the time he was elected and that the money had no influence on his decision to run.

Wong said he believes the workload of OC3 E-Board members and the large number of students included in off-campus housing justifies their receiving paid compensation for their job.

“Off campus has a larger constituency than on campus, it’s difficult to take all people into account,” Wong said.

Since FinCo allocates each community government’s budget based on its student population, OC3 has the largest community budget at $108,458, according to Adam Slomko, treasurer of OC3 and a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience.

The Newing College community receives around $32,000 in funding from the SA, according to Jennifer Hertz, treasurer of Newing College Council and a sophomore majoring in accounting.

CIW currently receives $28,362, according to Stacy Troy, treasurer of CIW Council and a sophomore majoring in actuarial science.

Alexandra Charen, president of Newing College and a sophomore majoring in marketing, said she knew community E-Boards could request stipends, but she was unaware any community received them. She said she felt “indifferent” about the knowledge that the OC3 E-Board receives stipend payments.

Charen said the SA would approve a strong proposal for a group to receive stipends.

“I could easily write a position to get stipend, but I choose not to,” Charen said. “The SA sees how hard people work … if a strong argument is made the SA would find it within reason.”

Marlena Vera-Schockner, a member of CIW’s E-Board who said she was aware that the OC3 E-Board was compensated financially, said she very willingly accepted her job without promise of payment. However, she said she was interested in looking into securing stipends for next year’s CIW E-Board.

“I would like to possibly try to set up a small [stipend] just to give people an incentive to do a better job,” she said.