The Student Services Finance Committee’s internal budget proposal calls for an unprecedented increase of over 774 percent, most of which would go toward funding a new academic staff position.
SSFC is asking for $49,155, up from its 2001-02 budget of $6,350.
The budget proposal, released Friday, continues a trend of possible massive segregated fee increases. These fees come out of student tuition dollars, and, assuming the trend increases continue for each group going before SSFC this year, could conceivably double in size next year.
The latest increase comes with the addition of a new financial specialist to SSFC. Currently, the committee has a single academic advisor, Connie Wilson, who was hired by the chancellor’s office and is paid by the dean of students’ office.
This new staff member would be paid by SSFC at just under $13 an hour, with a yearly stipend of $26,885.
Some committee members speculate that either the dean of students wants to redirect Wilson’s position or that Wilson thinks her job is too much for one person to handle.
Wilson could not be reached for comment, but SSFC chair Lamont Smith said the position was proposed to SSFC Vice Chair Roman Patzner and to himself by Wilson.
Smith said Wilson proposed the new position to relieve herself from the duties of processing financial paperwork, such as payrolls and monthly reports, as well as maintaining the details of all the budgets.
“Her schedule is so jam-packed that she doesn’t have the time to do all those duties effectively,” Smith said. “It’s a pretty big operation.”
Smith said one of the many duties of the new financial advisor, if approved, would be dealing with the constant flow of budgetary inquiries made by various applying student organizations throughout the year.
“[Wilson] doesn’t have the capacity to take on the amount of inquiries she gets,” Smith said. “They can have somebody around all the time to answer their financial questions.”
Patzner said there was also consideration of finding a successor to Wilson should she retire. As the sole financial administrator for the committee, it would not be easy to fill her job with someone without prior experience, Patzner said.
“If Connie were to leave, all her knowledge and experience would be gone too,” Patzner said.
But there is no indication she plans to leave soon, he added.
The second major increase in SSFC’s proposed internal budget gives pay raises to the committee’s chair and vice chair.
Currently Smith and Patzner receive $2,000 and $1,500 of stipends, respectively. If the new budget passes, next years’ chair and vice chair would receive $3,500 and $1,800, respectively.
Smith said the increase is due to the heightened responsibilities of the chair since the system was redesigned last year. He said raising the stipend will effectively increase the amount of effort next years’ chair will put into the job.
“There’s a lot of things the chair should be doing that also should be compensated for,” Smith said. “You get what you pay for, [and] there’ll be some additional job requirements of the chair that I feel will make SSFC a better committee.”
Smith said these jobs will call for more time working outside the committee, hosting two seg fee education events per semester and holding regular meetings with staff.
“I think it’s important that each semester SSFC supports better relations and getting out information to the students,” Smith said. “Right now there’s just too much misinformation ? and a lack of understanding of the system.”
Patzner said this was one line item of the budget he disagreed with. He said it would be more reasonable for the chair to be paid a $3,000 stipend instead.
“A thousand dollar increase is more than enough,” Patzner said. “But that’s up for the committee to decide.”
The committee hearing of this budget, scheduled for tonight, is expected to be cancelled due to a previously un-enforced ASM bylaw which states budgets have to be presented a full month before their hearing date. This means SSFC will not be able to hear its internal budget until at least December 7.
