MSA Senate passes student fee bills
Published Nov. 30, 2007
In less than one hour on Wednesday, the Missouri Students Association Senate discussed six pieces of legislation.
Three of the approved bills regarded the Student Fee Review Committee's recommendations to approve or reject student fees requested by the Student Health Center, A022 Brady Commons and the Counseling Center.
SFRC recommended that the Counseling Center receive its requested amount. At the meeting, SFRC Chairwoman Marjorie Martzes-Thies said the Counseling Center's data states 50 percent of MU's students use the counseling center.
Unlike the counseling center's request, SFRC recommended that the Student Health Center not receive any of its requested amount besides the yearly inflation costs.
Last year, MSA Senate passed legislation recommending the center not receive its request, but university administration later approved an even larger increase.
Because SFRC and the Senate recommended that the fee be denied again this year, Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said he wasn't sure if the same thing would happen again this year.
"It will be a test of SFRC's legitimacy," Mays said.
SFRC also recommended a fee increase requested for A022 Brady Commons be given, but they recommended to deny a requested 64 cents, which was asked for to fund equipment such as furniture.
The bill states that the equipment the 64 cents would be applied for was already covered in the Brady Commons expansion fee.
SFRC also drafted a bill regarding the $35 student fee for the Brady Commons expansion, which was approved by student referendum in 2005. The bill recommends that after the bond of the Brady Commons expansion has been paid off, the fee will no longer be collected.
"We can't have another Hearnes fee debacle," Mays said.
The Hearnes Center Fee fund grew from a 1969 UM system Board of Curators decision to collect an $8 student fee in order to reimburse $3.1 million in bonds, which helped pay for the 1972 construction of the Hearnes Center.
In 1995, when the bonds were finally paid for, the committee voted to continue the fee for maintenance purposes. But the original 1969 Bond Establishment stated the fee would not be used for operating or maintaining the facility, MSA Vice President Andrew Cafourek said in an earlier Maneater report.
The Brady Commons expansion fee bill was also approved.
"In the big scheme of things, the SFRC bills were the most important legislation," Mays said.
The Senate also denied a bill that would create a stronger policy on smoking. The bill was tabled twice in previous meetings. Senator Aaron Wynhausen recommended the bill be split into four separate bills.
Mays said he, Wynhausen and Peers Against Secondhand Smoke President Traci Harr, who wrote the original bill, have scheduled a meeting on Monday to discuss a compromise.
"There's enough common ground to reach a solution," Mays said.
The last piece of legislation reaffirmed the MSA Board of Elections Commissioners' right to release the election results. The bill was inspired by this year's presidential election during which the MSA Student Court issued a writ of injunction that forbade the results from being released.
Operations Committee Chairman Corey Gibson said he couldn't see where in the bylaws the Student Court had the power to do that.
Cafourek spoke in opposition of the bill and said the injunction was necessary to protect the court justices from any bias when deciding elections appeals hearings.
The bill was ultimately tabled.
