The University of Maryland’s SGA voted Wednesday night to allow a referendum about funding salaries for two MaryPIRG staff members to appear in its upcoming election.

The motion was approved 26-2, with three abstentions.

The referendum, which is split into two separate questions, will ask students whether MaryPIRG should be allowed to apply to fund a campus organizer, and for a state director. Funding the campus organizer would cost $24,389 in fiscal 2019, while funding a state director would cost $8,806 in fiscal 2019, according to the referendum.

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The referendum is part of a biennial process to establish funding for non-student leader salaries. There is a precedent of MaryPIRG using referenda to apply for funding every two years, in accordance with the Student Government Association’s bylaws, which usually don’t allow for student organizations to pay salaries out of its funds.

If students answer “yes” to these questions, it does not guarantee MaryPIRG would receive the funding from the SGA’s Finance Committee. It would only allow the organization to apply for funding, with the outcome determined by the committee.

MaryPIRG President Ary Papadopoulos said being able to pay for an organizer was crucial to the organization’s function.

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“The campus organizer is on campus every single day, they work 50-hour weeks with us — students — directly,” said Papadopoulos, a senior public health science major.

If the referendum hadn’t passed, it could have hurt the organization’s campaigns, Papadopoulos said. This semester, MaryPIRG has been working on protecting bees, starting small-donor matching programs in Howard County, encouraging KFC to use antibiotic-free meat and promoting open-source textbooks, according to its website.

Saman Azimi, a University of Connecticut alumnus, took on the mantle of MaryPIRG campus organizer on Monday after the previous organizer resigned, citing health concerns. Azimi said he got this job by being active in the national coalition of student PIRGs’ recent open-source textbook campaign.

“You’re here on the students’ schedule, but it’s so much fun working with students,” Azimi said. “Honestly, a dream job.”

Azimi will be finishing the year as MaryPIRG’s campus organizer, but he said he was not guaranteed the position next year.

“The campus organizer does provide that essential grassroots training,” Papadopoulos said. “We wouldn’t be able to organize as effectively without being trained to organize.”

Reid Buskirk, the SGA’s parliamentarian, said MaryPIRG has a historic precedent of being allowed to pay salaries despite the association’s bylaws.

“MaryPIRG gets this question on the ballot every two years, and usually it is approved, and then MaryPIRG goes through the Finance Committee, and the Finance Committee denies it,” said Buskirk, a freshman English and government and politics major. Buskirk said this is a matter of procedure, then “usually through appeals, MaryPIRG is funded.”