<< Front page News April 16, 2004

OSCA and ResLife at impasse

OSCA rent contract negotiations continue to be strained as ResLife maintains their demands.

Every three years OSCA and Oberlin College meet to arrange rent contracts. OSCA and Oberlin College are presently working on the contracts for 2004-2007. ResLife acts on behalf of the College.

OSCA has been attempting negotiations with ResLife for the past eight months, but negotiations have come to an impasse on the issue of rent.

“While the negotiations have gone well besides the financial aspect, all other points of negotiation are minor,” OSCA president Anne Sorich said. “These points could have been worked out in a full day of negotiations rather than eight months. The College is trying to stall as long as possible in order to manipulate OSCA.”

“By the end of February we were done with practically every issue that both sides brought to the table,” OSCA Rent Contract Liaison Mike McComb said. “However, that means we have spent almost all of this semester and a good portion of last semester on the rent figure and are still at a stalemate.”

For the past two weeks ResLife has held its monetary position on the rent issue. “OSCA has compromised on several monetary points, but the College is unwilling to monetarily reduce rent,” Sorich said.

Currently the college is offering a five percent rent increase next year and 4.75 percent rent increases for the two years after that. While this is a drop from the five percent compounded interest ResLife was offering prior to this week, OSCA still views the rent increase as unreasonable. “We think this increase is unfair given the services and buildings rendered from the College. We think this increase is unfair for the entire student body,” Sorich said.

OSCA has also expressed discontent towards the transparency of ResLife’s budget. Presently, it is unknown what a large amount of the money funds. “Besides our utilities, occasional maintenance and the physical spaces that we occupy, our guess is as good as anyone else’s as to where the money is going,” McComb said. “All we have been told is that the remainder is paying for ‘overhead costs,’ none of which have been enumerated.”

For the rent OSCA pays, they receive eight kitchens serving 630 students; four houses housing 197 students; all utilities, including web access; occasional space renovations and repairs, and all large equipment and appliances. The total OSCA will pay for this school year is $1,137,496. In 2005, it will pay $1,194,370, $1,254,089 in 2006, and $1,316,794 in 2007 under the current ResLife proposal.

Under the five percent rent increase, OSCA members will have to pay an additional $90 every semester. “If you are in OSCA for the next three years, you will pay an additional $559.92 just in rent from 2005-2007,” OSCA has said in an official statement.

“This is a question every student should be asking themselves in regard to student finances in general: where is our money going?” Sorich said. “The rent contract team sees it as its responsibility to express discontent with the state of Oberlin College finances in general. The rent contract can be used as a means to express frustration about College finances in general,” Sorich said.

According to an official OSCA statement to its members and the College, there are several reasons why they will not accept the proposal.

“OSCA believes it should not accept the College’s proposal for several reasons, including:

We… shouldn’t have to pay for the College’s poor financial management… one of the key principles of OSCA is that we all have a say in managing our own finances. We didn’t give President Dye a $1 million raise, or lose $500,000 by floating bonds prematurely before the city approved our new dorms.

“59 percent of your board bill, and 94 percent of your housing bill, already goes straight to the College.

“Five percent is over twice the one to two percent rate of inflation, and much higher than student or parent wages will likely increase.

“We already pay too much. The College has refused to give us any figures that justify our current rent. This number came from the increase for this year, 5.8 percent, which was tied to the rate of increase of ResLife.”

OSCA is asking all OSCA members, students, alumni and parents to write to ResLife expressing their dissatisfaction with the rent negotiation process and ResLife’s poor handling of the situation and finances.


 
 
   

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