With more than $268,000 granted to Associated Students Inc., ASI President Angela Arriola and the board of directors are developing additional student employment opportunities and alternate modes of transportation programs.

President Alexander Gonzalez granted ASI the money under the condition that 60 percent of the funds go toward campus work programs and the remaining 40 percent go to developing alternate modes of transportation.

To use the money efficiently, Arriola is setting up a task force composed of representatives from ASI, University Transportation and Parking Services and students.

“Anything we, ASI, can do to improve the student experience at Sacramento State, either offer affordable housing or increased job opportunity, we will do,” Arriola said.

With the additional funds, the appointed task force will look at raising student employee pay on campus, incorporating more federal work study funds and moving ASI volunteer positions to paid positions, Arriola said.

Working with UTAPS, the task force will also look at adding bike paths and bike compounds on campus, additional and more frequent shuttle stops and longer shuttle operating hours.

Today, the ASI board of directors will meet to appoint additional members to the task force along with Arriola, ASI Vice President of Finance Tiffany Huang and Associate Vice President for Finance Suzanne Green.

The task force will decide on how to best allocate the funds and then present its proposals to the ASI board of directors for approval. Despite the money being given to ASI over the summer, ASI couldn’t appoint a task force until the start of the semester.

The task force will meet over the course of the 2006-07 fiscal year to determine what programs need the money, but nothing will happen “overnight,” Huang said, adding that the task force will work hard to take things into action.

The budget for transportation and work programs was originally set for $120,000. The money granted by Gonzalez, along with additional funds, has increased the budget for these aspects to an estimated $408,000. The total ASI revised budget is $10,140,090. The addition of $268,000 will be annual.

Originally, it was a requirement at Sacramento State for one-third of student-voted fees to go to financial aid programs. The additional funds ASI received came from a vote by the student body and Gonzalez in spring 2004 to stop the one-third of student-voted fees to go toward financial aid.

In spring 2005, the Student Fee Advisory Committee made its proposal to Gonzalez that the fees go toward ASI, and the proposal was approved under the previously mentioned circumstances.

With the money being pulled away from financial aid and toward ASI, it can best benefit students, Huang said, by helping add more career divisions on campus and create more options for transportation.

Freshman Michael Ha, a computer science major, works in the University Union Games Room as an attendant and receives financial aid. This being his second semester on campus, Ha received $1,795 in financial aid from the school, but this total is less than what he received last semester.

With money financial aid going to campus programs, he said the money can be best used if it went to students thru financial aid because not all students use the school’s transportation services or have jobs on campus.

On the prospect of a possible pay raise, Ha said he’d rather have the money go in financial aid. “Financial aid is for school.” Ha said “Work is more about financial security.”

Matthew Beltran can be reached at [email protected]