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Students to decide where unspent segregated fees go
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by Matthew Dolbey
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
The Associated Students of Madison voted Thursday to give student representatives the right to decide where unspent segregated fees go. ASM student Council passed the resolution giving the Student Services Finance Committee, a group of elected or appointed students, the authority to choose where the left over student tax money should be spent.
In the language of the resolution, the “Regaining our Segregated Fee Reserves” will be in a referendum vote in the March 2004 ASM elections.
Bill Richner, a University of Wisconsin employee who works in the budget, planning and analysis department of the Chancellor’s office, said in a phone interview that the current unspent segregated fees are channeled back into the areas that they came from.
This means any student organization requesting money through SSFC is a group requesting money as part of the General Student Services Fund. If a group, like the MultiCultural Student Coalition that uses GSSF status, does not spend all of its allocation, the reserves go back into the entire GSSF pot to either lower students’ segregated fees in the upcoming year or to provide more money to student organizations providing services. Reserves coming from GSSF budgets are not allowed to carry over to non-GSSF budgets.
However, where this money goes is now decided at the administrative level, Richner said. Richner added that UW estimates the cost of GSSF budgets and other budgets paid for by segregated fees such as non-allocable groups like the Unions and Recreational Facilities. UW then must decide how much the charge is to students. Currently, each student pays $291 a semester.
Eyal Halamish, a UW freshman and ASM representative, signed on to support this resolution.
“I support it, because we [students] need to have control of where our money goes,” Halamish said. “Anytime when [students] can retain power, it’s a good thing.”
The proposed amendment to the student constitution claims nearly $1 million was left unspent for student services. The language of the resolution hopes to “offset the segregated fee semester fee charged to students.” Because the reserves are decided at the administrative level, students rarely hear of their dispersal.
