OPINION & EDITORIAL
An open letter from the Badger Party: take seg fees into your own hands
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Also by Matt Seaholm:
- Congressional Spending (December 8, 2003)
- Not worthy of an 'A' (January 19, 2004)
- Democratic filibusters hurting Senate progress (November 17, 2003)
- State legislators accessible, ethical (January 21, 2004)
- Positives hard to come by in Dean's speech (October 8, 2003)
Related Stories:
- Cut them no SLAC (October 13, 2005)
- The 'opt-out' option: a dangerous concept (April 9, 2003)
- Editorial: Millions for Donations, Not One Cent for Tribute (February 14, 2006)
- The myths and realities of an opt-out seg fee system (April 3, 2003)
- Bipartisan demand for referendum clarity (April 5, 2005)
by Matt Seaholm
Thursday, March 27, 2003
A lot of discussion regarding the proposed opt-out referendum is to be placed on the spring ASM ballot has been circulating around campus. A bipartisan group of students comprised of Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians, who have no self-interest in the current funding system, have worked diligently to give you the right to decide which student organizations you would like to fund. I will first explain how the opt-out system would work should it be passed, and then explain why so many people are scared to let you, the students, vote on such a system.
Right now, each student pays $580 a year toward segregated fees. Most of this money goes to fund vital student services like the Wisconsin Union, UHS, the SERF and NAT, and the ASM bus pass. As organizers of the petition effort for the opt-out system, we recognize the absolutely essential nature of these expenditures. These four aspects of student life touch each of us every day and, as such, would be exempt from the opt-out portion of your tuition bill.
However, each student also pays approximately $100 a year to fund about 25 student organizations. These organizations receive annual budgets ranging from $10,000 to $1,000,000. So unless an organization that you’re a part of receives funding from the Student Services Finance Committee, you will not be affected by the opt-out system. Your organization will also not be affected if it receives operations or travel grants from ASM, which are administered by the ASM Finance Committee.
So why will a small but vocal minority stop at nothing to try to prevent the student body as a whole from considering these measures? For nine years, our student government has been comprised of people who are actually members of the organizations we fund, creating many damning conflicts of interest.
What is unfortunate is that the same people have chosen not to engage members of the Badger Party and student body in a debate about the merits of an opt-out system. Instead, they have chosen to dole out frivolous accusations of violations of library solicitation rules that do not even exist and have seen fit to manufacture numerous other complaints without merit.
Four thousand UW-Madison students have told the student government that they want a say in their seg-fee bill. It is time for students to question why a vocal few are willing to take your money through an unaccountable system but are completely willing to charge you more and more each year. It begs the question, what exactly are these people afraid of? Unfortunately, the answer seems rather obvious.
Matt Seaholm is a sophomore majoring in political science and is a Badger Party candidate for Letters and Science in the spring ASM election.
