At tonight’s Student Services Finance Committee meeting, your money is up for grabs and so is your safe ride home.
SAFE’s budget reconsideration comes after SSFC members learned that the budget they approved is not necessarily reflective of what students will be receiving in services. We applaud this move by SSFC, since SAFE has already drastically cut the number of SAFERides students receive in half, even though this information was never given to SSFC and was done without much student input. However, SSFC should fairly analyze the SAFE budget and not simply cut programming because the committee did not have all necessary information the first time around.
In order to ensure a minimum amount of service is rendered to students, SSFC should employ the seldom-used but permitted tactic of attaching budget stipulations to SAFE’s request. This tactic, while criticized by some as micromanaging, is a necessary step with the SAFE budget — especially as the service goes through a much-needed overhaul.
SSFC should also require that the number of SAFERides not be cut any further in hours or number per student, per month. SSFC should also recommend SAFE implement a new system, which may require students to pay a small fee for their cabs, but increase the number per month. Another stipulation that SSFC should attach is that seg-fee dollars cannot be used to fund more than 50 percent of the total cost of SAFEWalk. This will help prevent a budget bait-and-switch.
The problems with SAFE Services are massive, but the importance of the service should not be understated. While we hope Lance Lunsway, UW’s transportation director, can help turn around this beleaguered program, it is still necessary that SSFC put some constraints on the program without restricting improvements to students. A rider resolution supporting the increase of SAFERides back to eight per month, per student and/or increasing SAFEBus to 3 a.m. every night of the week would be a good move for SSFC.
Implementing these suggestions would be a great first step.