[media-credit name=’YANA PASKOVA/Herald Photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]It's official.

Come March 28, it will be up to University of Wisconsin students to decide whether to raise tuition by up to $96 per student, per year, for up to 30 years. This would help fund an approximately $153 million project to renovate Memorial Union and build a new Union South.

Shayna Hetzel, vice president of external relations for the Wisconsin Union Directorate, and Adam Robinson, director of the Wisconsin Union Directorate Student Performance Committee, formally announced during a press conference Monday that the organization garnered more than the 1,952 signatures needed to put the referendum on an Associated Students of Madison ballot at the end of this month.

"Almost 8 percent of campus clearly supported funding for this project," Hetzel said. "Almost 3,000 students showed how important the Union is to student life."

Hetzel said the WUD garnered a total of 2,881 signatures, surpassing an internal goal of 2,500 the organization set for itself.

The proposed project includes a remodeling of Memorial Union — which currently does not meet many safety codes put in place after the Union's original construction in 1928 — and a completely new, larger Union South to be constructed by 2010.

If the referendum passes the March 28-30 vote, student segregated fees — an additional payment students pay on top of their tuition — would be raised by $96 and could remain at that level for the next 30 years.

The additional fees would be earmarked to fund the first phase of the project.

This year, segregated fees cost students more than $600 each. And with a $27.5 million segregated-fee budget proposed to Chancellor John Wiley last Thursday — a 10 percent increase from last year — student fees could rise next year depending on whether the chancellor approves it, even if the WUD referendum fails.

And ASM Chair Eric Varney believes the cost of the proposed referendum is too high for students.

"It comes down to a cost issue," Varney said. "Is it really feasible to have students pay $100 a year for this?"

Varney admitted renovations for the Wisconsin Unions is necessary but urged the WUD to seek funding from outside sources, such as alumni and sponsors.

However, Hetzel said the WUD has sought funding from alumni and sponsors and added they would be more receptive to donating money for the project if they knew it had the support of the student body.

"If students pass the referendum, that's going to show potential donors that … it really is a student project," Hetzel said.