A proposal by the Jindal administration would “re-index” students’ operating fee, increasing costs, according to a speech Gov. Bobby Jindal gave last week.
Robert Kuhn, associate vice chancellor for the Office of Budget and Planning, says “re-indexing” a fee means updating the base year for which the fee is calculated.
That means Jindal’s plan would not create a new fee. It would update the existing operational fee to be worth 4 percent of current tuition.
Kuhn said when the University added the operational fee in 2004, it cost $80 — then 4 percent of tuition.
Jindal’s proposal would “re-index” the fee to be 4 percent of current tuition value instead of the 2004 value.
This semester, the University’s tuition was $2,863 for a student taking 12 hours. Four percent of that is about $115.
Jindal’s proposal would not force students to pay all $115 — it would merely increase the current operational fee from $80 to $115.
That’s an increase of $35 a semester, or $70 an academic year.
That doesn’t factor in tuition increases allowed by the LA GRAD Act. That bill, passed during the summer, allows universities to raise tuition by up to 10 percent if they meet certain performance measures.
It also doesn’t factor in other increases in fees or tuition the Legislature might choose to allow in the coming session.
Jindal said in his speech last week the fee is designed to “help meet the ever-growing bill of mandated costs.”
Also called “unfunded mandates,” these costs support programs the state forces the University to pay for without providing the means to do so.
The largest such cost is the University’s retirement system. The state mandates the University pay increasing amounts for employees’ retirement without providing money to fund those increases.
University administrators claim such costs have caused recent budget cuts to be much deeper than they look “on paper.”
During this academic year, for example, administrators claim these mandates have all but eaten up funding gains from tuition increases allowed by the LA GRAD Act.
“Budget forms don’t depict unfunded mandates,” said Jason Droddy, director of external affairs. “So although our budget looks like it’s fine, the direct student impact is much worse.”
Jindal said the proposed fee would give the University money to cover some of those costs.
“This will not cover all increases in mandated costs,” Jindal said when he announced the plan last week. “But it will generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue for universities.”
Droddy agrees the fund is good for the University, even if it doesn’t make up the entire funding gap.
“It would not cure the unfunded mandates,” he said. “But every piece helps.”
Jindal’s proposal will have to earn a two-thirds vote in the Legislature before taking effect, Droddy said.
The Legislature has to approve any fees that are directly related to instruction. Fees for other services, like housing, the Student Union and bus service, can be raised independently.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]