The Nevada Sagebrush

Student leaders are considering a restructured fee system that could cut the Associated Students of the University of Nevada’s budget by more than 50 percent.

The move could mean downsizing or eliminating the student event planning board Flipside, clubs and organizations funding, the Unity Commission, the sound and lights department and Inkblot Promotions, said Reynolds School of Journalism Sen. Jonathan Moore. The proposal would protect some services, such as Campus Escort.

The proposal is partially motivated by an expectation of higher student fees because of budget cuts to the Nevada System of Higher Education, ASUN Sen. Mitch Bottoset said. Lowering the student pay-in to ASUN would help them with any higher fees implied by Gov. Brian Sandoval’s proposed 17.66  percent cut to higher education funding, he said.

Moore said the senate’s hesitation to spend money on several occasions last semester suggests that many senators would support the idea.

“We look at this place andwe say, ‘Why are we spending $6,000 on furniture during a budget crisis?’” he said.

Sandy Rodriguez, director of ASUN, said the senate proposes large cuts every two or three years, but usually stops once the benefits of its services are seen in numbers. Rodriguez said she would be happy to talk with senators about the idea “because ASUN is the largest employer of undergraduate students on campus.”

The idea hasn’t been formally presented to the senate and is in its infancy, Moore said.

Undergraduates pay $5 per credit to ASUN every semester — an average of about $75 per student. The proposal would change this to a flat fee of $35 or less, Moore said.

An optional fee would be available for access to programs such as Flipside events not covered by the mandatory fee. The fee would be mandatory for freshmen, he said.

People who choose not to pay the optional fee would pay at the door for those events they did choose to attend.

The mandatory freshman fee would hurt student event programming goals to appeal more to older students, said Christina Gunn, director of programming.

Mathew Neben, chair of the senate’s Committee on Budget and Finance, said changing the fee structure won’t necessarily save students money.

“The Board of Regents has historically shown that when ASUN takes away fees, they just take it and put it toward something else,” said Neben, a senator for the College of Business Administration.
College of Liberal Arts Sen. Mitch Bottoset hopes the cuts will end an upward trend in ASUN spending. He said the executive branch increased 1,000 percent from $4,500 to $45,000 between 2001 and 2009.

The senate’s failure to adjust funding for new positions and departments over the years is one major factor in the increases, Bottoset said.

Different senators have different ideas on the goals and specifics of the proposal, Moore said. College of Liberal Arts Sen. Sara Sinnett said her reason for supporting the proposal is mostly for reducing office expenditures.

Slashing the budget could also mean a reduction of professional staff employed by the association to manage its daily activities, Moore said. Such a reduction could increase the workload on remaining employees if the amount of work doesn’t decrease proportionally with staff hours, said Amy Koeckes, ASUN’s associate director of marketing and media.

Departments relying on the optional fee would also find planning their services for the semester much harder, Neben said. Programs such as Flipside’s free movie series could have to put off planning.
Gunn said Flipside wouldn’t be able to plan as many events under the plan. Programming helps to connect students to campus and each other in a convenient location, she said.

Moore said he would like to see the fee voted on by the undergraduate student population in the ASUN general elections March 9 and 10. The fee would go into effect by next semester.

Ben Miller can be reached at bmiller@nevadasagebrush.com.

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