University of Wisconsin students may be required to take on more of the cost of the campus bus system in the coming years under a proposal from the university.
The Student Transportation Board of the Associated Students of Madison has started to negotiate with UW Transportation Services about how much students will pay for the 80 buses, according to a Student Transportation Board statement.
The Student Transportation Board aims to “reach a compromise on the amount of funding that the department will receive from students,” the statement said.
Students currently pay 47 percent of the campus busing system budget, adding up to $770,000. According to the Student Transportation Board statement, UW Transportation said it expects students will cover 74 percent of the budget by 2015, totaling $1.4 million.
Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said historically, students have comprised 80 percent of the ridership while paying for about half of the cost for transportation services.
“Our objective over some period of years is to bridge that gap,” Bazzell said.
He said because of this gap, UW employees have taken on a subsidy that comes out of their pockets. He said right now the university aims to reduce the subsidy in accordance with former Chancellor John Wiley’s recommendation for students to sit down with the university to work out a solution to decrease the subsidy.
“The point is to eliminate the subsidy over time,” Bazzell said.
In the statement, Student Transportation Board Chair Chase Wilson said he does not want students ever paying for the entire transportation service.
“Students have been unfairly viewed as a blank check,” Wilson said in the statement. “Transportation Services may believe they can pressure students into paying entirely for programs that the university no longer sees as their responsibility, but we disagree.”
Bazzell said the 74 percent estimate is just a guess, and that to get more concrete numbers the university will put on a survey sometime this month to reassess the percentage students make up of the total ridership.
He added that transforming the subsidy is critical for employees because of benefit cuts caused by state-level legislation. He said with this, UW employees are expected to take an 8 percent pay cut, so a way to offset this is by moving away from the subsidy.
Looking forward, the Student Transportation Board will be working with Transportation Services director Patrick Kass to negotiate the amount students will ultimately have to pay in the future, the statement said.
The Student Transportation Board also explained in the statement that the bus system is within segregated fees under financial policy F50, but that this does not specify if it is an allocable or non-allocable expenditure.
Since campus transportation has been an allocable expenditure in the past, it must maintain its current status, the statement said.
“Funding of the campus bus system has been an allocable project and will remain so,” the statement said. “Therefore, the determination of how much students will pay for bus service is subject to negotiation, not mandate.”
