Members of the student government evaluated budgeting for transportation services at the University of Wisconsin in a meeting Tuesday night.
During last night’s Student Transportation Board meeting, representatives of UW Transportation Services presented their proposed 2013 fiscal year budget to the board.
A main point addressed during the meeting focused on the inclusion of paying for new bus shelters in the overall bus budget of about $1,777,299. Commuter Solutions Manager for Transportation Services Dar Ward said over an eight year period, all bus shelters on campus will be replaced with new ones.
She said the $40,000 amount for the item in the budget reflects how Transportation Services has been budgeting for four shelters each year, with each costing about $10,000 to allow for building new cases and benches. She the current year is the fourth or fifth year of the eight-year period.
Student Transportation Board member Laura Checovich asked about the inclusion, and said she wondered if it would be appropriate to make students pay for a capital purchase item.
“My concern was only because students were not part of the decision-making process to even renew them, and it seems unusual that we would be asked to pay for something we were not consulted on,” she said.
Transportation Administrator Gordon Graham said in the past there has not been a hard and fast policy for who pays for the bus shelters, since some end up being negotiated so as to be a part of other projects, and some do not.
He said the inclusion of the shelters in the costs paid for by students is something being put on the table, but said he thinks the university will certainly not pay for the cost and he cannot think of who else would.
The campus taxi program section of the budget, which totals $120,973 as proposed, was also considered at the meeting. Like all other items on the overall budget, the Associated Students of Madison cost totals half of the amount listed.
Graham said the $74,000 students would pay is about the same as budgeted for last year, and that the budget for the service tends to be very cyclical and adjustments often need to be made.
He said right now, students seem to be using the SAFEride cabs less.
“We may have reached a tipping point where students are seeing the program as not for just convenience but as a safety net,” he said.
Ward agreed and said since the switch was made to providing six cabs a semester, students seem to be saving them and using them as a back-up rather than as a more regular transportation service.
With this, student board member Chase Wilson asked if it would be prudent to budget less than proposed for the cab service.
Graham said Transportation Services will refund ASM if the budget exceeds actual costs and that he thought it might be wise to still allow for the higher budget rather than run into under-budgeting problems.
The board will meet again next week, and discussions on the budget will continue.
