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News

SFAC awaits ruling on $150 fee cap

Bill increasing student fee cap may prevent fund shortage

By Portia-Elaine Gant
Senior Staff Writer

The Student Fees Advisory Committee could begin its allocation hearings next week with a shortage of money if the Student Government Association Senate does not authorize raising the Student Service Fee.

The Senate sent a bill calling for increasing the $150-per-semester fee cap to committee at its Jan. 26 meeting, but Speaker of the Senate Bobby L. Warren said senators will likely pass the increase when they meet Wednesday.

"Presumably it will get out of committee and be brought to a vote at the next meeting," Warren said. "I'm almost certain it will pass then. If it doesn't pass then, we won't pass it this year. SFAC will have to work with what they have."

The committee, which allocates Student Service Fee revenue to a variety of campus groups, will still have options even if the SGA doesn't approve the increase, Dean of Students William Munson said.

"(SFAC is) not bound by the $150 cap, but they know the $150 cap is out there," Munson, an ex-officio member of SFAC, said. "They could devise a fee budget that remained within the $150 cap and cut programs and activities, or they could take a position where they feel like they are not restrained and recommend what they think is the amount needed to support the programs in place and maintain the quality of services funded by the Student Service Fee."

SGA elections will take place in early March, shortly before SFAC must deliver its recommendations to UH President Jay Gogue. So the committee could make its report without considering the $150 cap, then count on the new Senate for support, Munson said.

"The potential exists that a budget based on a recommendation that SFAC has agreed on would not reach the student government until the new Senate is in place," he said.

The strain on SFAC's funds comes in part from mandated salary increases, which the committee did not provide for last year.

"There was a 2.25 percent salary increase that was not built into the budget. Perhaps there will be another salary increase in the fall that will create an added burden," Munson said. "With added expenses like that, if the fee isn't raised, we'll have to reduce programs."

Carlos Machado, an SGA senator, said the Senate's decision to send the bill to committee was not because it had an argument against raising the fee cap. The Senate did not even discuss the bill Jan. 26, he said.

"I just really did not know enough about it," Machado said. "I wanted a more complete report on what the bill was about because I hadn't seen the bill until I got to the meeting that night."

SFAC hearings will take place Feb. 16, 18, 21 and 22 in the University Center's Bluebonnet Room. All of the presentations are open to the public.
 

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