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Committee discuses student fee increase

Eight University organizations have requested more money to deal with inflation

By Erin Sommer

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The Campus Fee Review Committee will meet today to discuss whether to raise student fees for next year.

The committee, a subcommittee of Student Senate’s Finance Committee, will discuss presentations that were made on Saturday by eight entities that depend on student fees. At that meeting, all eight entities asked for a raise in their current fees.

The presentations included a simulation showing how much each entity expected its costs to rise through the fiscal year 2015.

Mary Chappell, director of Recreation Services, said that her organization, along with the other entities, had to ask for an increase in fees to make up for inflation.

“If your costs go up, something has to go up,” Chappell said.

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Eight University entities met with the Campus Fee Review Committee on Saturday and asked for increases in the amount of money they received from student fees. They are:

• Campus Environmental Improvement Fee

• Campus Transportation Fee

• Legal Services for Students Fee

• SafeRide Fee

• Student Health, Facilities, • Maintenance, Repair and Equipment Fee

• Student Health Fee

• Student Recreation and Fitness Center Fee

• Student Union Building Fee

Alex Porte, Great Falls, Va., sophomore and assistant treasurer, said that the meeting would look at the necessity of the fee requests made in the presentations.

“If there are any fees raised it will be in the line of what the University needs, rather than what the University wants,” Porte said.

He said that no final decisions would be made regarding student fees at today’s meeting, but the committee would use the meeting as an opportunity to discuss the Annual Fluctuation Fee Bill, a list of fee increases.

Porte said that the committee would then write the Annual Fluctuation Fee Bill sometime after the meeting. That bill is then voted on in the Finance Committee. If the bill passes in the Finance Committee, it will be voted on by Student Senate.

Porte also said he expected the Annual Fluctuation Fee Bill to be presented to the Finance Committee before the end of the fall semester.

According to Student Senate Rules and Regulations, the Campus Fee Review Committee spends the fall semester reviewing possible fee changes because of inflation, such as changes needed because of rising oil prices, and spends the spring semester reviewing possible fee changes for service costs, such as a new program that a University entity may want to implement.

Emily Williams, Overland Park senior, student senator and member of the Campus Fee Review Committee, said that the committee existed to provide input and oversight into student fees.

“Student fees have to be increased for maintaining quality of programs and services and our consensus is that it’s going to be easier to raise fees in small increments than burdening certain groups of students with large increases,” Williams said.

The Campus Fee Review Committee meets today from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Wheat Room in the Kansas Union.

— Edited by Jeff Briscoe

Comments

richie09 (anonymous) says...

What bothers me is that every time there is talk of a fee increase it is always because of "fuel" or "inflation." I know that fuel costs a lot these days but it hasn't increased that much since last year when our fees were last adjusted. One would think that a slight increase in fuel costs would have been considered last year when making the budget.

The other problem is that if fixed costs have in fact increased, we don't necessarily need to raise fees. We need to look at spending and see if there are areas that we could cut back on while still maintaining the current level of service (cough cough - clickers).

Make the budget work and quit coming to the students for more money.

October 30, 2007 at 12:42 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

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