Student government leaders are working to ensure that any future temporary decreases in the incidental fee will be decided by ASUO consensus, and that a process will be in place to prevent losing half a million dollars, as happened last spring because of a University administrator’s accounting error. Though the details are not finalized, it seems rhetorical support for fee reductions will not result in any policies that bind future generations to
rebating student power.
The incidental fee is tacked onto tuition each term. It is used to fund the ASUO and all its programs, contracted services and its contributions to some University departments. A student taking 12 credits or more this academic year is paying $195 per term. Last year, the fee was the same in fall and winter terms, but was reduced to $95 in spring term because of an unilateral decision by former President Sam Dotters-Katz. He reduced the fee by using over-realized monies, which pile up when actual student registration exceeds projected enrollment, to buy down the cost of the fee in the spring.
Dotters-Katz painted the decision as a victory for “everyday students” — those vaunted specimens — against the wicked ASUO-funded programs and others who would otherwise receive the funds for one-time improvement projects and events intended to enhance the cultural and physical development of campus.
The over-realized money, Dotters-Katz said, was a slush fund handed out by corrupt amateur politicians to do unseemly things. Using the money to buy down the fee prevented student government largesse. Never mind that he turned to over-realized funds just after he was elected to fund 24-hour library service and again at the beginning of fall 2008 to fund a hip hop concert and a hundred thousand dollars or so of other projects.
Unfortunately, the whole “buydown,” as it became known, was blighted by an accounting error that overestimated how much money would be available after the bills came in. All of the money that had been collected from the incidental fee was spent, and state-mandated reserves had to be tapped.
In order to prevent this from happening again, the ASUO and the University administration are changing the way money is tracked. And this week President Emma Kallaway will meet with University President Richard Lariviere to begin hammering out a process to add any future buydowns to the ASUO’s charter document.
The Clark Document, which delineates how students here can control the use of the incidental fee, has not been updated since 2005. Kallaway wants to add provisions to mandate that any over-realized funds sit in an account for a year before being spent, encourage future presidents to consult with the Senate before deciding to buy down the incidental fee, and encourage future student leaders to consider buydowns once over-realized funds equal a large percentage of the incidental fee budget, perhaps somewhere around 25 percent.
Kallaway said one idea is for any over-realized monies to be put into a clearing account, which is usually a temporary place where funds sit until they are transferred elsewhere. The funds can then be transferred to pay for one-time projects Senate approves, or be used to buy down the fee.
“The idea (of temporarily lowering the fee) is important but what needs to be in there is better checks and balances,” Kallaway said. “A buydown is appropriate when you decide that’s what’s good for students.”
She said that as a senator she would have liked to have a vote on whether the fee should have been reduced last year and would like the document to reflect the need for collaboration. The University administration, she said, is ambivalent about how the ASUO comes to a decision on how to use its money.
Whatever the final revisions, future generations must be allowed to decide for themselves whether the University’s enrollment estimates resulted in so much extra money that the ASUO can help lighten the burden of skyrocketing tuition. Or they could decide one-time investments like recent purchases of biodiesel vans and the salary of a compost coordinator are a greater benefit for all students.
The incidental fee is a source of student power. Student leaders will need to think hard before offering a rebate.
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