2008 Woodie Awards
Judicial Council upholds Senate Bill
Students give administration 1/3 of Student Activity Fee
Eric Elizondo
Issue date: 5/15/07 Section: Front Page
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Senate Bill 31 changes the Student Activity Fee by dividing it into three separate fees: the Office of Student Affairs Fee, the Student Publications Fee and the Student Activity Fee.
The Office of Student Affairs Fee will be collected and overseen by Vice President of Student Affairs Steve Sutton and will fund various activities sponsored by the Office of Student Affairs. In the past, such events have included the Late Night Breakfast, student travel to leadership events, the Night at the Rockets event and breakfast at the Presidential Day of Service.
The VPSA will appoint a committee to control the rate of the Office of Student Affairs Fee and distribute the collected funds to various organizations overseen by the Office of Student Affairs. In the past, these offices have included the Office of Student Activities, the Office of Volunteer Opportunities, Campus Life, Recreational Sports and Campus Ministry. Previously, these offices received money by petitioning the SGA and from an account made up of a percentage of vending machine sales on campus.
Sutton said that, while Senate Bill 31 was loosely based on recommendations presented by a task force in the spring, it was drafted, voted upon and will be enforced by the students.
"I was prepared to implement the recommendations that the task force had, which included setting aside a portion of the student activity fee for campus-wide programming," he said. "Roy and Josh and some others felt that they would rather set the parameters than have me do it. I was supportive of that idea. I really didn't have a lot of input into Senate Bill 31."
SGA President Josh Gautreau, a senior finance major, said that he felt a change was necessary to rectify the inefficiencies of the old system. "Giving the Office of Student Activities money ahead of time frees the SGA up to focus on more student concerns," he said. "The system wasn't broken, necessarily. It was just a really inefficient way of doing things."