After a student appealed Interim Chancellor David Ward’s decision to overturn a budget decision made by the student government, a University of Wisconsin System official denied the appeal last week, which could mean a lawsuit is on the horizon.
In a letter to Student Services Finance Committee Chair Sarah Neibart, who filed the appeal on behalf of the committee as well as Associated Students of Madison Student Council and the Segregated University Fee Advisory Committee, UW System President Kevin Reilly said the appeal is “not appropriate to be taken up by the Board (of Regents)” and that Ward’s decision stands.
This comes after Ward’s decision in late March to overturn decisions made by SSFC and ASM Student Council to not fund Wisconsin Union and Rec Sports’ non-allocable budgets within the 2012-13 fiscal year segregated fee budget.
In a March letter to Neibart and ASM Student Council Chair Allie Gardner, Ward conveyed his formal decision to overturn that of ASM and accept the budgets to avoid resulting “untenable choices.”
Neibart previously said SSFC’s reason for disapproving the budgets boiled down a need for more transparency as to how and where specifically the funds within them would be utilized.
In the appeal, Neibart said there is an issue with Ward’s assertion that UW can designate areas of student services and programming as non-allocable, meaning that “students are required to pay whatever amount of fees the UW-Madison sets.”
She said this adopted practice in UW campus policies violates state statute 36.9.05, which states that students have primary authority over where fees go, and that as a result, student shared governance is removed.
“The definition of ‘non-allocable’ is found nowhere in state statute, additionally neither is the legal ability for UW System to create such a differentiation within student fees,” she wrote to Reilly.
In an interview with The Badger Herald, Neibart said UW System policy has not been in direct correlation with state statute, and that behind her appeal was her belief that there is no distinction between allocable and non-allocable when it comes to “student life, services and interests” under state law.
In addition to this, she said Ward’s decision to forward an independently created and altered budget for Wisconsin Union and Rec Sports was illegal, because the law under the legal framework of Spoto v. Board of Regents requires him to reengage in negotiations with students to reach an agreement.
In his response letter of denial, Reilly said the budgets of both entities have been deemed non-allocable, and that “the use of non-allocable SUF in both budgets seems appropriately related to supporting the long-term commitments for fixed financial obligations and ongoing operating costs.”
He cited Board of Regents policy 30-5(1), which affirmed that “the institutions are responsible for defining the allocable and non-allocable portions of the student fee and that only allocable fee disputes may be brought before the Board for resolution.”
With this he said the appeal on the non-allocable budgets is not appropriate, adding that he would like to sit down with UW System student government leaders to discuss F-50 and “the various attitudes about its implementation that seem to exist” in the System.
Neibart said at this juncture, she will likely move forward with a lawsuit against the Board of Regents in addition to going to the Legislative Reference Bureau for administrative rules. She said she is in the process of accessing the shared governance defense fund through United Council.
“Twenty years ago we should have had this fight over primary responsibility,” she said. “At this point it is only appropriate to bring this to the state level.”
