To some student government leaders, the decades-old implementation of a University of Wisconsin System policy on student fees spells the violation of student rights and an issue that could escalate to a legal battle.

After the United Council of UW Students approved a resolution calling for the review of UW System Financial Policy 50, which defines the scope of non-allocable and allocable university segregated fees, student leaders across the system are rallying support to ensure students’ legal rights are upheld.

System policy dictates students, in consultation with the chancellor, have primary oversight over allocable fees, which fund eligible student organizations, while the chancellor is granted primary oversight over the non-allocable funding stream, which funds entities such as the Wisconsin Union and University Health Services on the Madison campus.

Associated Students of Madison Student Services Finance Committee Chair Sarah Neibart said the necessity for reviewing the policy focuses on the level of students’ authority in determining how their segregated fees are allocated, as is articulated in the state’s statute on shared governance, 36.09(5).

While fees have been assessed to fund student programs since before the merger that formed the UW System in 1971, Neibart said individual campuses began to create policies that monitored students’ direct oversight following the junction.

According to Neibart, this reinterpretation of the statute on shared governance for students was not made through administrative rule and, therefore, is illegal.

“Students would have been an effective lobby against what they were doing,” she said. “This is an illegal practice that’s been going unchecked for decades.”

In a legal opinion written in conjunction with a July 2007 segregated fee appeal, United Council attorney Mark Hazelbaker acknowledges that students currently do not have primary oversight over the non-allocable funding stream.

He dates the university’s distinction between the two funding streams to 1978, saying the notion that “students have no authority to modify [non-allocable fees] … would have eventually been litigated.”

United Council President Seth Hoffmeister said a disconnect exists in the practice and procedure for distributing non-allocable funds and does not currently embody the original intention of state shared governance statutes.

“The challenge will be redefining how to reclassify certain areas of segregated fees,” he said. “[Although] students are guaranteed to allocate as they see fit, they’re being told in the same breath how to spend their money.”

While Hoffmeister said he did not want to accuse UW System officials of breaking the law, he acknowledges the implementation of the financial policy highlights a contradiction that might exist between the laws. He said this legal dispute could be resolved by rewriting Financial Policy 50 or other System financial policies.

He said there has already been a promising show of support from campuses across the state for the review, and individual schools are beginning to consider how to best undertake the review for their specific practices.

After campuses approve similar resolutions in support of the review, Hoffmeister said he hopes to use this state network to go to the UW System Board of Regents to begin redefining the policy, but emphasized United Council will strive to work with administration.

“It’s not going to need to result in a lawsuit, but if it needs to, it will,” he said.

UW System spokesperson David Giroux said he was not aware of United Council’s resolution and could not comment on how the regents would address the legality of the issue or a process for review.

United Council spokesperson Matt Guidry said while the current student board on the council has identified F50 as a “politically created stumbling block,” the vagueness of the policy has remained an issue since its original inception in 2007.

“It’s kind of vaguely drawing lines around where students can and can’t spend their money,” he said.

Guidry also expressed optimism that the regents would be receptive of students’ grievances and would look to be adaptive in their interpretation of policies.

However, Neibart said she would not shy away from filing a lawsuit against the Board of Regents, and certain mindsets surrounding the value of students’ input has stopped this legal question from being raised.

She said students need to serve in more than an advisory capacity on for the large projects that typically fall under the non-allocables, citing the building of Union South as a project that students would be paying off for years to come based on the outcome of one referendum.