The Badger Party unveiled a plan they say will help students save tuition dollars, by offering an “opt-out” system for segregated fees going to student groups. The group held a press conference Tuesday at the University of Wisconsin’s Memorial Union to address the specific details behind the proposed opt-out system.
“Students can lower their tuition bill by choosing groups that they wish not to fund for any reason,” said Nicole Marklein, Badger Party candidate for Letters and Sciences.
Art Blair, an Associated Students of Madison Council Representative and Badger Party candidate for a Letters and Sciences Graduate Seat, explained that each student’s seg-fee bill on their tuition is split into two parts: allocable and non-allocable.
“The non-allocable portion pays for the bus pass, the union, university health services and rec sports,” Blair said. “ASM has little real control over non-allocable seg fees, and let me make it perfectly clear that those four services would not be affected by our initiative.”
Blair then laid out the details behind what the allocable seg fees consisted of.
“The allocable portion is itself split into two portions: the General Student Services Fund and the ASM internal budget,” Blair said. “The internal budget pays for administration, event grants, travel grants and operations grants that fund the day-to-day operation of some 170 student organizations.”
This portion, like the non-allocable, would not be optional for students on their tuition bill.
“This means the overwhelming majority of student organizations that draw funds from seg fees would not be affected by the opt-out simply because they spend money very responsibly,” Blair said. “These groups reach thousands of students on budgets of no more than a few hundred dollars.”
That leaves the General Student Services Fund part of allocable seg-fees.
“GSSF is the focus of this initiative,” Blair said. “If you wonder why we’re focusing on GSSF, it’s because this one portion and the 23 organizations it funds gobbles up 93 percent of all the funds that are available to student orgs.”
“Over the past year, we have seen budget requests for organizations increase from a level of $100,000 to $1,000,000 — a 900 percent increase,” said Roman Patzner, Student Service Finance Committee Chair. “Our student government has proven they are incapable of making these decisions responsibly.”
“We believe the student body is tired of the corruption of ASM, where many members of student organizations actually sit on the funding committees that decide their own organization’s budget,” Marklein said.
A petition signed by 4,085 UW students was submitted two weeks ago to get the opt-out question on the ballot.
The measure will be voted on during the upcoming ASM elections held April 7-10.
