Of all the institutional blunders that have occurred in the 200,000 years of modern human existence, a typo in the Students’ Representative Council Constitution is relatively minute. Just think of all the mistakes that had to happen before the Roman Empire fell. In comparison, accidentally doubling the salary of a student governmental body that represents 700 undergraduate students in the middle of nowhere, British Columbia, seems pretty tame.

In all seriousness, we screwed up. Due to a one word error in the constitution, elected members of the Students’ Representative Council are receiving double the salary than advertised during the constitution referendum last academic year (2016/2017). This error is found in the Tier 3 bylaws. Tier 3 bylaws are editable only by student body referendum.

The excerpt below is taken from section 3.12A Compensation Amount in the Tier 3 bylaws.

The current wording of the constitution authorizes a total of $32,000 to be spent on SRC minister compensation in a year. The referendum taking place from Wednesday, October 4th, to Wednesday, October 11th, if passed, will change the wording of the constitution to “For the Academic Year in which a Representative works, they are compensated for their work with a stipend that is equal to 120 multiplied by the hourly campus Work-Study wage”, halving the amount spent on SRC minister compensation.

$16,000 can fund the purchase of 4000 tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream, it can fund the purchase of 67 Little Tikes Jump n’ Slide Bouncy Castles, but most importantly that is $16,000 more put toward student initiatives on and off campus. 

So do us a favour, do yourself a favour, do student initiatives a favour, and go vote.