In the wake of the Come Together ticket’s victory, a referendum to increase the Student Activity Fee failed to pass. The proposal to increase the fee by $10 was turned over to the student body to decide, and students elected to keep the fee the same by a vote of 1,009 to 837.
“The vote was closer than I thought,” outgoing Student Government Association President Michael Harriss said. “But it’s a clear sign that the student body wants us to be more fiscally responsible with the money than we have [been].”
If the Activity Fee increase had passed, it would have created a larger budget for SGA to allocate to Chartered Student Organizations.
“Passing the Student Activity Fee would have been beneficial to CSOs,” outgoing Financial Vice President Robert Moehle said. “But the problem I see is that [a student] pays $45 a semester to the activity. Each student gives a full semester to attend an event, and people give more than the Student Activity Fee to attend.”
Moehle expressed relief that the fee did not pass, as a limited budget puts more responsibility on CSOs and SGA to better dictate how the money they have is spent.
Cuts will be made to certain aspects of CSO funding, including travel and speaker qualifications. CSOs will be encouraged to look locally for speakers and events.
“We’re going to have to look at what we fund and what we don’t fund,” Harris said.
Despite the referendum vote, both Harris and Moehle said that they felt the logistics of the Activity Fee were effectively communicated to the student body.
“We had the Student Activity Fee Town Hall in the fall,” Moehle said. “We emailed the students and put up posters. Every single student on campus was notified that this was taking place. It’s their responsibility to know these things. We informed them the best we could.”
Harris said he wanted the voting to be more “organic,” meaning that he didn’t want students to be influenced by SGA agendas, and to vote how they really felt.
“It’s one of those things where [the students] know or they don’t,” Harris said. “Those who were informed probably voted for the increase, but in the long run, it’s better we didn’t push the initiate on the students.”
“I feel like I’m spending enough money at this school as is,” freshman Allison Newburg said.