After only two nights of budget hearings, the Programs Finance Committee, the group charged with determining the budgets of ASUO-funded services, has already surpassed a Student Senate mandate to increase its overall budget by only 2.5 percent.
The limit would have increased the overall PFC budget by roughly $136,000, something ASUO President Jared Axelrod has said would be impossible. The PFC has a budget of $5.4 million.
Committee members faced what they called the most complicated budget of the season when representatives from the Student Recreation Center said that the Rec Center has been running in the red for close to three years and will continue to do so even with a budget increase.
The PFC has issued budget increases for 12 of the 14 budgets it has heard so far. Student Senate rules state Senate may deny any part of the PFC recommendations in February, and Axelrod may also veto.
Dennis Munroe, director of Physical Activity and Recreational Services, said that several years ago, the Rec Center began going through the PFC for funding and initially received “substantial” budget increases. For the last few years, he said, the PFC has been imposing limits on budget increases, which has caused the Rec Center to have to dip into reserve equipment funds to pay basic operational costs.
The reserve funds, initially set aside to be used to purchase new equipment, are now being used just to keep the Rec Center in operation, Munroe said.
“In order to provide the service that students always had and were used to, we were forced to use some of that original reserve,” Munroe said. “Students haven’t felt it because we’ve been using that reserve. Now we’re at a point where it’s irresponsible to continue down that road.”
During deliberations in which PFC members considered that passing the budget would push them over the top of the 2.5 percent overall increase, PFC member Annie Blomberg described the task of figuring out the complex Rec Center budget as “unfathomable” and said she didn’t know what to do. PFC members eventually determined that passing the 2.5 percent mark was inevitable.
PFC Chairman Oscar Guerra said he went into the meeting with a goal of reviewing the Rec Center budget to determine which areas of the budget were most important to increase, but knew that even if the Rec Center was granted only its current service level, it would still pass the Senate recommendation. He expressed his disappointment that the senators who passed the benchmark were not present for the hearings on contracts and departments, which he said have the biggest budgets in the PFC.
ASUO finance coordinator Madeline Wigen said that the Rec Center budget is complicated because it is large (over $1 million). The Rec Center employs several students, as well as full-time staff, and state-mandated wage increases are restrictive.
Wigen said that with those mandates, the only way to stick to such a limited increase would be to start making cutbacks in contracts and departments.
Although Wigen recommended only a 6.64 percent budget increase for the Rec Center, representatives asked the PFC to consider a larger increase in order to fund the salary for a new daytime and weekend custodial position that Munroe said was “desperately needed.”
After nearly two hours of deliberations, PFC members approved an 11.7 percent increase in the Rec Center’s budget, meeting Wigen’s recommendation with the addition of the custodial position.
Wigen said she did not recommend the additional custodial position, “in the interest of fairness and consistency” because she had not recommended new positions for any other program or department.
“We knew PFC would take into consideration the needs of the department and what they presented to the PFC,” she said.
She said that looking at the budgets that have been approved so far, the majority of the increases were for personnel expenses, something that neither the departments or the PFC have any control over.
Even with such a large increase, the Rec Center is facing the difficult decision of either cutting student services or dipping further into its reserve funds.
“We’re grateful for the work the PFC and Madeline have done,” Munroe said. “They recognized the road that we have been on and acknowledged that with an increase that was greater than they otherwise would have given.”
Wigen said the directors from PARS did a good job of breaking down the complex budgets to show the PFC the “nuts and bolts.”
Munroe said that while the budget approved on Friday night will minimize the impact of the center’s financial situation, it will not solve the problem.
While the Rec Center officials have not decided what, if any, services will be cut if the financial situation does not improve, it may have to start charging a fee for services such as towel use or cut hours.
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