In a few weeks, ASM will determine what to do with a sizable surplus of student-fee monies. As ASM Chair Eric Varney explained in a guest column last week, the surplus occurred only due to a difference in actual versus estimated enrollment. Varney noted that a group of ASM leaders, the Reserve Board, will decide among several options for disposing of the funds.

The decision should be swift. The correct option is clear: give the money back.

Students deserve to have their fee dollars returned to them in the form of a reduction in next year's seg-fee rate. Last year's surplus was dealt with in such a manner, chipping $10 off tuition and fee bills. To do otherwise would be foolish.

Sure, we seniors won't benefit from the offset, but I'm willing to be charitable; my four years here at the University of Wisconsin were marked by a tuition increase alone of more than 50 percent. Seg fees rose every year as well. To top it all off, students may now be asked to fork over more compulsory charity to fix up the Unions without ever having been asked for a donation. Given these trends, one almost starts to pity the whippersnappers in Ogg and Kronshage. Almost.

That options besides a rebate even exist for funneling the money elsewhere speaks volumes of ASM's Solomonic wisdom. Your student government has $830,000 of your money and it's not sure if it should give it back to you.

Individuals and groups have until this Wednesday to submit plans, which must meet three criteria, for alternate uses of the funds. I hereby cordially ask all parties to refrain from doing anything of the sort. Restrain yourselves. Steer clear of the online application form. Handcuff yourself to a bike rack if you have to. Just don't submit a fee request for your pet project that would divert student fees from their rightful course back into the pockets of your peers. ASM already claimed a devilishly high figure of $666 from each of us this year in seg fees.

Now, if the Reserve Board feels it absolutely must use the fees on a project or cause (and I think it's smart enough not to), I want to throw out a few suggestions. Looking back at student government on this campus, a scant few examples of worthwhile fee expenditures emerge from the dim mists of the past. Among them are the classic icons of 1979 brought to Madison by the notorious Pail and Shovel Party. Yes, Reserve Board, that's right — if you insist on funding something, I want to see flamingos blanketing Bascom Hill. I want Lady Liberty's torch to shine brightly over the icy wastes of Lake Mendota once more. It would be grand.

Fortunately, I trust these blasts from the past are as unlikely to materialize as any other expenditure of the reserve funds. ASM, to its credit, fought for control of the funds, and it would be a shame to see students, finally in control of the funds, do anything other than help all students in a real and concrete manner by reducing the cost of a higher education.

To this end, I issue this challenge to all members of ASM Student Council and SSFC: enact legislation making a seg-fee rebate the default action in the event of any future reserve fund surplus. Any extra fees should automatically go back to students.

Several birds would be killed with this one simple stone. The five members of the Reserve Board could not get delusions of grandeur and waste $830,000 on flamingos or any other sketchy, harebrained scheme. ASM would gain an iota of legitimacy for voluntarily devolving some of its power over funds. Everyone would know exactly what was going to happen with reserve funds each year. Seg-fee rates would be lowered. Overall, making rebates automatic seems like just the sort of change that might actually happen on the watch of Chair Varney, who has proven a far more reasonable, pragmatic and representative leader of student government than any seen in recent years.

But until an official metamorphosis of the bylaws and Constitution of ASM occurs, the ASM Reserve Board should reject the proposals of anybody who manages to Houdini his or her way out of the aforementioned handcuffs. Above all, the funds should not be dumped into the coffers of the Wisconsin Union Directorate's renovation dreams, which are great ends predicated, once again, on disturbing means.

Give the money back to students in the form of lower seg fees next school year. Do it for the children.

Brad Vogel ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.