Each student will pay $100 less to fund the ASUO during spring term, ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz announced Friday.
The changes will halve the incidental fee for spring term by using funds already collected from students during the past two terms. In previous years, the ASUO held any funds greater than its operating costs in an over-realized account that was later divvied amongst student groups seeking funding for construction projects and other one-time expenses.
Dotters-Katz drew ire from many ASUO senators when he discussed the change in the fall. The Senate controls the over-realized fund, and many senators were disappointed to lose money they had expected to distribute to programs at the end of the year.
“Essentially, they saw it as him trying to take money from them,” Sen. Derek Nix said of the senators who objected to Dotters-Katz’s proposal.
Since that meeting, relations between Dotters-Katz and the Senate have deteriorated. When Dotters-Katz requested money from the Senate to cover the costs of the fall term street faire, senators chastised him for not coming to them when they still had access to the over-realized fund.
“We’ve already given them enough money,” Senate Treasurer Nathan Perley said at the time.
Dotters-Katz became increasingly frustrated in his subsequent appearances before the Senate. He condemned their fundraising and outreach efforts. Senators, in turn, began to question Dotters-Katz’s motives, voting down his appointments to the Senate and questioning his request to control money the University made through an environmental initiative.
The cost of the incidental fee is the main fault line in campus politics.
“On one side, you have people wanting to raise the I-fee to go to programs and on the other hand you have people wanting to lower the I-fee to go back into students’ pockets,” Nix said.
The incidental fee funds a wide array of services to students, from the EMU to student sporting event tickets to the Assault Prevention Shuttle and Designated Driver Shuttle services. However, Dotters-Katz said the reduction in the fee would not affect programs.
Sen. Sandy Weintraub said he thinks the fee reduction will likely find favor with students, but he opposes the manner in which Dotters-Katz had accomplished it.
“If students understood just the scope of what the I-fee can do, I think many of them would have their minds changed,” Weintraub said.
Weintraub said the fee is a relatively small part of student expenses, though still an important one. Yearly tuition alone for University students is estimated at nearly $6,000 for in-state students and roughly $20,000 for out-of-state students. But those who supported the initiative said the sum is not insubstantial.
“$100 could be your groceries for a month,” Nix said. “It could be a third or a fourth of your rent payment.”
[email protected]