The ASCC legislation, Mascot Pay, was voted on by senate on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
The senate vote was split which led to ASCC Senate Pro Tempore Joseph Fierro casting the decisive vote against passing the legislation.
The Mascot Pay Legislation was introduced by Senators Saul Lopez and Gloria Sedano but it was Vice President Ivan Oyarzabal who oversaw the legislation and presented it to the ASCC Senate.
Following senate rules, Oyarzaval had Fierro take over as senate chair in order to have a chance to present and vote on the Mascot Pay legislation.
The legislation states, “the mascot is a representative symbol and carries the morale of the ASCC.”
It also states, “Cerritos College will utilize the mascot for a multitude of platforms including but not limited to public outreach, student engagement, athletic events, community fairs.”
With regards to the mascot’s pay the legislation states, “the mean of professional mascot pay is within $25,000 to $65,000 per year as stated in The Chicago Tribune and International Business Times.”
Oyarzabal based the $25,000/ $65,000 amounts on the pay that professional NBA and NFL mascots earn.
He did not know what California mascots earn, but did say it depends on the event, the expertise of the mascot and if the mascot is registered with the official mascot school.
The legislation also states “The ASCC supports the reinstatement of the traditional rate of $14.32.”
It also states that the budget allocated for the mascot shall not exceed $26,000 for the fiscal year 2015-2016.”
Student Trustee Victor Villalobos pointed out a lack of clarity in the legislation by asking Oyarzabal who would pay for the money needed to make the mascots pay $14.32 per hour.
Another problem with the clarity of the legislation was the fact that it stated the pay increase as a reinstatement of pay.
Senator Saul Lopez clarified that Franco Falcon mascot was hired with the pay of $14.00 and had his pay reduced to $9.93.
The decrease in pay was done to have more hours with the mascot before the money allocated to the mascot’s salary from ran out.
However Villalobos pointed out that the word “reinstatement” is misleading because the money used to reinstate the mascots pay has to come from somewhere.
He said, “To reinstate would mean to bring back money from the original budget […] all that money has been gone it’s been allocated to different clubs, different things including the special projects, to reinstate it doesn’t say where the money is coming from […] Who knows where they are going to get this reinstated money from.”
ASCC Senator Dennis Garcia supports the idea of giving Franco Falcon a pay raise, but said, “The wording of the legislation was a bit ambiguous.”
ASCC Cabinet Commissioner of External Affairs Jessica Germata supports the pay increase for the mascot and sees the mascot as a tool to help with community outreach.
Germata said, “There are so many events and so many things we want to get involved in as a school as a community that we want the mascot there, [….] if we’re out of money we can’t attend those events [….] are we really paying the mascot for all that he’s doing? [….] Our mascot does a lot from supporting the athletics but athletics doesn’t budget him only ASCC budgets him.”
