AS election commissioner resigns

Paul Amador disagrees with AS funding allocations

By Dana Parker McClain

Associated Students Election Commissioner Paul Amador officially resigned from his position Tuesday and announced his candidacy for the upcoming AS elections.

Amador said he enjoyed the experience, but couldn’t continue due to conflicting interests with AS funding decisions.

“ If I continued in this position, it would be construed as supporting their administration,” Amador said. “I can’t let that happen because it’s not what I believe.”

Amador served as the election commissioner for the last year and works in the leadership development program on campus.

He said he is irritated with the AS finance committee’s decision to cut the leadership program by more than 40 percent.

“ The frustrating part is that they decide to cut the budget just on pure numbers represented to them, yet they’ve never seen what the program actually does for the students of the campus,” he said.

Amador said the focus of the AS philosophy for budget allocations has shifted and no longer serves the best interests of the students.

But AS President Neil Gibson said he disagreed with Amador’s statement.

“ The focus has and will always remain 100 percent on the students,” Gibson said.

Many student activities and programs on campus are facing funding cuts in the upcoming year.

Amador said the leadership program was cut because the finance committee focuses on the number of students they can reach with AS money, instead of considering the value of the programs they fund.

“ It’s the quality of the projects that they are missing. They are focusing just on the quantity of the people they reach, rather than the quality,” Amador said.

Referring to the USA Today Readership Program, Amador said the committee sees 300 students pick up or read the newspaper and deems the program as more valuable than the leadership program, which benefits a smaller group of students.

“ The leadership program might have smaller audiences, say 20-25 people, but it changes those 20-25 people’s lives for their entire life,” Amador said.

Jurkovich said she is aware of both the quantity and quality of students affected in funding decisions, but tough budget times call for tough measures.

“ Our projected revenues for this year were expected to be $560,000,” Jurkovich said.

Instead, the AS is looking at projected revenues of $440,000.

“ I completely support the finance committee’s decision,” she said.

“ We met with (Amador) and we shared his concerns,” Jurkovich said. “We looked at their budget and the finance committee did see some things that could be cut.”

Jurkovich said the leadership program will be cut in the payroll and miscellaneous sections.

This means the program will be able to keep one payroll position instead of two and will lose money for T-shirts and food, she said.

Amador said funding decisions are never final and students can speak out if they disagree with the allocations.

One way Amador will speak out against policies of the current AS is by running for president or vice president of finance in April’s AS elections.

“ If you feel that strongly about something you have to make the effort to do something about it,” Amador said. “ If it means running for that position, than maybe that’s what it takes.”

Gibson said he is saddened by Amador’s resignation.

“ I was excited to have (Amador) leading the election commission this year. He would have done such a fine job,” Gibson said.

The AS will be accepting applications for both election commissioner and election commission member until March 3 at 5 p.m. Interviews will be held on the evening of March 3.

Applications are available on the associated students Web site http://www.csufresno.edu/studentgovt/.