Fee proposal doesn’t match MSA resolutions

By Anna Koeppel

Published Jan. 29, 2008

Fee proposals reported by MU administrators for review by the UM system Board of Curators do not match the proposals recommended by the Student Fee Review Committee and the Missouri Students Association.

A document sent to the board’s Finance and Audit Committee recommends that health fees increase 4.1 percent or about $3.66 per student. Later, the document states, “The Student Fee Review Committee and the MSA Senate support these proposals.”

But an MSA Senate resolution passed Nov. 28, states that SFRC proposed a student fee increase of only $2.32.

Scroggs said her office changed the student fee recommendations to reflect the actual inflationary increase, which were only projected estimates when the resolution passed. She said she felt keeping the fee recommendations with the inflation rate was in line with the will of the committee. The fees cannot be raised higher than the rate of inflation because of a Missouri law passed last year.

She said the university is held to a total fee increase of no more than 4.1 percent.

Mays said the inflationary cap was not the only reason SFRC recommended a lower student fee increase than what the Student Health Center recommended. The committee felt services funded by the fee increase were available at other campus locations, such as the Wellness Resource Center and the Counseling Center.

Graduate Professional Council President Jennifer Holland said the resolution to increase the Health Center student fee failed in GPC, and that the council did not consider legislation recommending student recreation or student government fee changes.

“If the administrators feel the need to provide a separate recommendation, I would think it would make sense to explain where the difference of opinion is,” Mays said. “I don’t want to speak for anyone on the board, but if I were there, I would want to know why there was a difference of opinion.”

Scroggs said she does not have an answer on why the recommendation sent to the Board of Curators did not reflect the discrepancy between the recommendation and the SFRC/MSA recommendations.

Mays said he’s hoping for a clarification of the recommendation on the documents given to the board.

Mays said he received an e-mail from Scroggs’ administrative assistant Anita Cowan requesting a meeting between Scroggs, Mays, SFRC Chairwoman Marjorie Matzes-Thies, MSA President-elect Jim Kelley, MSA Vice President-elect Chelsea Johnson, Student Affairs Fiscal Officer Rich Anderson and Student Life Director Mark Lucas. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

“The number one thing, immediately, is a correction,” Mays said.

Mays said that including a statement explaining the student fee change would make sense to him.

“What’s so hard about explaining the inflation rate and making a separate recommendation?” Mays said. “There’s no reasonable justification for changing the student proposal without consulting the groups that made the recommendation.”

Student representative to the board Tony Luetkemeyer said administrators have the right to recommend fees that differ from the student recommendations.

“It’s obviously within the authority of the chancellor’s office when they bring forward recommendations for fees to recommend fees that are different than those proposed by the student government,” Luetkemeyer said.

Luetkemeyer said he would definitely bring the issue up at the board meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

“If you have processes set up to make sure student voices are being heard, then those processes should be followed,” Luetkemeyer said.

Luetkemeyer said he thinks it’s inappropriate for the board materials to state that MSA and SFRC support the fee when they do not.

“It’s important to realize the discussion on campuses that happened before it came to the board,” Luetkemeyer said.

Mays said ideally, student fee recommendations would not be due until after the inflationary increase is known, or SFRC and MSA could recommend a range of fees based on possible inflationary increase amounts.