Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 1999)
CFA unable to achieve difficult goal salary increase forced members to raise fees despite promises By Kim Sweet Staffwriter For most students, $ 14 goes a long way. Fourteen dollars can buy a pizza, a couple of 12-packs or a compact disc. But next year, students will use that $14 to pay for the CFA-approved increase in student fees. Despite a pledge to hold the line on fees, the Committee for Fees Allocation voted Tuesday to increase student fees, mostly because of a state-mandated salary hike. CFA initially received requests that would have raised fees to more than $255. Tuesday night, the com mittee trimmed the final budgets to make the fees hit $254. The vote resulted in a $14 increase. Because most students could think of a million ways to spend $14, CFA members strive to account for every last penny. And members say penny-pinching isn’t an easy task. Kourtney Mueller had some experience working on a budget in high school. As a member of the Nebraska Association of Student Councils, Mueller was partly responsible for putting together the budget. After being appointed to this year’s CFA, Mueller put some of her skills to work. But the amount of money allocated to the organization pales in comparison to the $ 10 million Mueller and other CFA members are in charge of distributing. Mueller and 10 other CFA mem bers learned that doling out the $10 million students pay in fees every year is no easy task. Some, like Mueller, have found that while accounting classes or past experience with budgets has helped, nothing could prepare them for the job they faced over the last year. “No one really knows what they are getting into and how much time it takes,” said junior Amy Rol, an off campus representative to CFA. Beginning their terms last fall, CFA members toured campus facili ties to see what services students received for every dollar spent. Members also learned what being a CFA member entailed, said Paul Schreier, CFA chairman. “That’s basically what first semes ter is—school for CFA,” Schreier said. “All we do is find out what our jobs really are.” After learning the system, CFA was ready to hear budget presenta tions. Keeping the budgets tight was something Schreier said was an important goal, and it resulted in a res olution that pledged to keep fees low, after last year’s 16.8 percent increase. This year the fees will increase 5.8 percent. Lean budgets also were a priority because of the Nebraska Legislature’s biennial salary increase, Schreier said. A 4 percent salary increase for all state employees was included in this year’s budget. Marlene Beyke, ASUN director of development and CFA adviser, said CFA had never resolved to hold the line on spending before this year. “That set the tone for the entire year,” Beyke said. “They have been extremely proactive.” Campus Recreation director Stan Campbell said he was nervous after hearing about the flat spending reso lution. “Structurally, we would have had to reduce the scope of services we offer,” Campbell said. After hearing budget proposals, committee members faced what some said has been the hardest part of the job - deciding what part of the bud gets can stay and what parts have to go. Rol, who said she joined CFA because she was concerned about high student fees, has observed first hand the difficulty of the budget $14 student fee hike set for fall pending administrative OKs CFA from page 1 $255 was too high, the committee addressed each hind user one by one and began making cuts. The committee decided to cut the increase from the Campus Recreation facility fee from $1 to 50 cents. The decrease will provide less funding for future improvement pro jects, such as repairing tennis courts and fields, said Campus Recreation Director Stan Campbell. After the University Program Council was hit by an initial 7.5 per cent decrease in its budget request, CFA voted to add another 3.5 percent cut to the UPC budget to make the cut an even 10 percent Woodford said the cut would force UPC to evaluate which pro grams are really important and which ones will actually draw stu dents. “I don’t want UPC to go away, I want them to shape up,” Woodford said. After making cuts to Campus Recreation and UPC, the committee dropped another 2.5 percent undi rected cut on the Student Involvement portion of the Nebraska Union’s fund. CFA member Paul Schreier, who made a motion for die cut, said it will process. “You want everything the fee users have to offer, but you have to make a decision,” Rol said. While CFA failed to fulfill the res olution they passed at the beginning of the semester, Schreier said it was a goal CFA expected to fall short. “Every year, it seems through ASUN campaigns people say ‘We’ve got to lower student fees,”’ Schreier send the message to Student Involvement that it needs to be more efficient “We don’t want to cripple the office - it does serve a vital func tion,” Schreier said. “But given the size and magnitude of die operation and die way students are using it, we need to ask for more efficiency.” Marilyn Bugenhagen, director of Student Involvement, said the decrease would most likely take away programs. CFA voted to accept the approved budgets for the Daily Nebraskan and the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska. The two resulted in a 9 cent and 34 cent increase respectively, with the 4 percent legislative increase fig said. “But I think people are willing to pay fees as long as they can get some thing for them,” he said. With that philosophy in mind, CFA forced fee users to come up with strong justification for budget increase requests, Campbell said. James Griesen, vice chancellor for student affairs and CFA adviser, said the committee asked questions and looked at each fee user, ensuring stu ured in. With the salary increase still pending in the legislature, Griesen said it is possible that the increase would be less than 4 percent. If the increase ends up to be less than 4 percent, Griesen said that stu dent fees could go down another dol lar. After voting to accept the budget, which will gamer $10,336,258 from students next year, fund A and fund B users can come forward to CFA with appeals to the budget. The meeting will take place on Thursday at 7 p.m. Once the appeals are taken into consideration, the committee will present the budget to ASUN. ASUN will vote on the budget March 10. dents got the most for their money. “I think they’ve been very astute,” Griesen said. “They’ve raised the right questions and probed deeply.” The one-year term each CFA member serves will be complete after the student senate approves the 1999 2000 budget March 10. The budget will then go on to Chancellor James Moeser and the Board of Regents for final approval. « I think we could have cut fees more. I think we could have saved students more money\ but this committee decided not to do that.” Jeff Woodford CFA member — — - I ° j|j ^(lirir'V I Need A B ckeoki^ OwM*^ 1*11 do All tke driving - Plenty of room. ArffordAble - 1*11 even give off to Student ArdvAntAge Cord Members, or 10% if you cAn .start me your f Ace on a Student 1.0. l*f you WAnt more info, caII me At l~800—V)SAr~HUlil | soo-ssa-2920 or V\it my Website At www.Amtrdb.com ~ ■ . . ' • • ;*-■ - ; “ 7\;.’ • ■ 7. ' • ' • .. -,v7 "7; '7 * ■ * - ' ..... . • , •.. . " . 1 . . .. ■ ■ • • 77.7, .7. 7 -\7777;7 .'.77777 ' ■ - - '.Vi7
