Student Fee Review Board approves 17-18 fees

Haley Candelario

April 18, 2017

The Student Fee Review Board met Monday evening to review several proposed student fee changes for the 2017-2018 academic year.

The board reviewed the 2017-2018 student fee package, and voted on a fee increase to the Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board and approved the 2017-2018 Associated Students of Colorado State University’s budget.

SFRB approves proposed “Long Bill,” lowest overall fee increase

SFRB reviewed the student fee budget to make a recommendation to the CSU Board of Governors. The overall fee increase for the student fee budget is 1.34 percent, the lowest overall fee increase of a student fee budget.

General Fee increases for the 2017-2018 academic year are:

Full-time, on-campus students: $15.60; total: $1,183.74
Full-time, off-campus students: $7.25; total: $478.95
Part-time, on-campus students: $8.20; total: $293.02
Part-time, off-campus students: $3.62; total: $219.35

The increases for the budget include a $9.71 fee increase for RamEvents and budget increases for operations within the Lory Student Center. The student fee budget includes fees for the CSU Health Center at $424.53, the CSU athletics fee at $124.50 and the fee for the Campus Recreation Center at $507.87.

The bill will be finalized at the next Board of Governors meeting on May 2 and May 3 if they choose to approve it.

Proposed ASCSU Budget for 2017-2018 Fiscal Year

ASCSU President-elect Josh Silva and ASCSU Vice president-elect Michael Wells presented their budget for the upcoming academic year.

Silva and Wells proposed no student fee increase for the ASCSU fee, which was a major platform for their campaign.

“We don’t expect a fee increase for next year the way we’ve set it up this year,” Wells said.

The budget increased salaries for members of ASCSU and increased funding for Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation.

Silva and Wells said they felt the salary increase was essential for members of the ASCSU executive branch and legislative branch to keep up with competitive pay, and to compensate for the mandatory Colorado minimum wage increase in January 2018.

RMSMC received a $25,000 funding increase for the upcoming year to increase the pay for students, compensate for the mandatory minimum wage increase, and add another advisor position.

While the ASCSU fee is proposed not to increase, a portion of the fee will be reallocated to the Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board, which was removed from the ASCSU budget and placed into the Parking and Transportation Services’ budget.

The ASCSU student fee for the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year was $43.25, and the fee will not increase for the upcoming academic year. The proposed change would make the ASCSU student fee $24.45 and allocate the remaining $18.80 to ATFAB.

SFRB passed the budget as many members favored that the president-elect and vice president-elect found a way to increase funding and salaries without requiring a student fee increase. The budget will be voted on during Wednesday night’s Senate meeting.

ATFAB request for million dollar funding increase denied, receives lower increase

The Alternative Transportation Fee Advisory Board requested about a $1.15 million increase to their budget for the 17-18 academic year, a 112 percent increase in their budget from this year.

SFRB denied their request for this substantial increase in funding, and instead approved a $417,226 increase for the year-old board, which included mandatory increases and $375,000 for the board to pursue some of its proposed projects.

Hanna Johnson, the chair of ATFAB, presented to SFRB about the projects, which included adding more long board racks on campus and modifying streets on campus to make it easier for students to navigate campus by bicycle.

ASCSU Vice President Mike Lensky, the chair of SFRB. (Collegian file photo)

Members of SFRB expressed concerns that the proposed budget was too high for ATFAB’s proposed plans and questioned if ATFAB could initiate their plans with a smaller budget.

Vice President Mike Lensky, who chairs SFRB, said ATFAB previously worked with a budget of $100,000, but the budget was increased since some of the projects ATFAB proposed cost more that $100,000.

Lensky said the concern with lowering the budget would extend the duration of projects ATFAB wants to pursue.

“If you give them less (funding), they can only accomplish so much in a given year,” Lensky said. “The issue is that they won’t be able to do much (if we lower the cost). They hope that next year they’ll be able to show what they did with that $375,000 (but) if we lower it, they’ll be worried that they won’t be able to do anything.”

Members of SFRB approved the increase of $417,226, but indicated that they would like to see the money allocated towards infrastructure projects and asked ATFAB to return next year with their accomplishments so SFRB can discuss increasing the budget again.

Collegian news reporter Haley Candelario can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @H_Candelario98.

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