Reported By: Deirdra O’Boyle
-
Oswego State Students Offer Free Tax Filing
by Jamie Aranoff
Oswego, NY- Students in Oswego State’s MBA program volunteered their time to do free income tax reports for both students and members of the Oswego community.
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program (VITA) has been a part of the Oswego State campus for over ten years. The VITA program assists students who are new to doing taxes on their own as well as community members.
According to a press release, the Oswego VITA program received a score of 100 percent in quality site requirements in its IRS field audit.
VITA on-site program coordinator Kevin Kania says tax forms are sent by the students to the IRS electronically. If there are any questions or concerns about a form, the IRS will contact them.
“Last year we had over a 99 percent approval rating, which means over 99 percent of the returns we prepare were accepted by the IRS which means we did them correctly and there were no issues or questions for us,” he said.
According to City-Data, the median household income in Oswego was $39,632 in 2015. Many residents fit the requirement for VITA’s minimum income, bringing in many tax forms for student volunteers to file.
“Last year we preformed over 400 returns and this year we’re on track to get over 400 returns throughout the whole semester,” Kania said.
The last day to file taxes is Apr. 18.
-
Funnelle Hall’s Renovations
Located in the heart of campus, just steps away from the Marano Campus Center and Cooper Fitness and Dining, lies the nine floor building Funnelle Hall.
Built in 1965, Funnelle is home to over 400 SUNY Oswego students.
SUNY Oswego announced they will be doing major renovations to the building, starting at the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester. Students living in Funnelle Hall will need to relocate once construction is started.
Renovations will be finished for the 2020 Fall semester.
According to Funnelle Hall RA Charlie Chapman, he doesn’t see the construction being an issue for students.
“I don’t think it will be too hard on them. They’ll probably just move out, they’ll probably have the same roommate. They’ll just be somewhere else, depending on where they have classes it might be a further walk but it should be fine,” said Chapman.
Student Jason Lin has aspirations about what the renovations will consist of.
“I think for Funnelle Hall they should renovate the kitchen area, and the lounges to make them more modern and more spacious for people to hang out in,” said Lin.
For the students moving to new dorms, once the renovations are done they will likely be able to relocate back to Funnelle, and enjoy its updates.
This project is expected to be a great improvement for SUNY Oswego, and will surely put the “fun” in Funnelle.
-
Oswego’s Unusual Winter
Winter may not be over yet, but just by looking around you would think it ended weeks ago. The few signs that remain of winter slowly melted away last week as temperatures soared into the 40’s. According to Dr. Scott Steiger the local co-op observer for the National Weather Service, we’ve only received forty-nine point one inches of snow as of February 29th.
An alarming seven feet below the average snowfall for this time of year. Though it’s not surprising that we’ve seen so little snowfall, through the winter months Oswego ran 2.9 degrees above average temperature-wise. January saw the worst of the effects of the warm winter at an amazing 6 degrees above average.
Students, either way, have taken advantage of the spring-like conditions and have used the time to spend their days outside. While others were left waiting for the snow that never came like Florida native Bruno Rojas. Bruno had this to say about the past winter in Oswego “There weren’t that many lake effect events in Oswego so you never really got to see…big snow storms, where you could just sit down you know in the snow and just kind of watch the really big snowflakes kind of fall really gracefully. ”
Many have expressed similar views, asking constantly where was winter this year? The answer? There was a strong Arctic Oscillation or AO, that was in its positive phase. When it’s in a positive phase we oftentimes see a lot of the cold air trapped up in Canada. It’s when it enters its negative phase that it starts to allow the colder air to funnel down into the United States. and that’s what allows for those cold Oswego winters that we all know.
While this was certainly an anomalous winter, it is part of a longer-term trend of winter warming across upstate New York. The trend becomes obvious on this chart from climate central, showing how Syracuse’s average winter temperatures have warmed 2.8° since 1970. While this chart is only for Syracuse, the changes can be seen all across New York as our climate continues to change.
