Committee to oversee use of student funds
Talk of fees — new fees, old fees, student fees, administrative fees, Rec Center fees, Spring Sports fees — it’s enough to make a student’s head spin. But Student Government wants to make things clear.
The Student Senate Wednesday established the Student Fee Oversight Committee to research and oversee student fees.
“Students often complain about paying too many fees and not knowing where those fees are going,” said Senate Speaker Pro-Tempore Jerry Fisher.
The SFOC will maintain records of the fee expenditures and determine the validity of the uses of those fees.
“Fees at LSU are so complex,” said SG President Patrick McCune. “We promised students we would institute some method to reform this.”
McCune said fee reform has been one of his administration’s primary objectives, and work began as early as last summer. At the beginning of last semester, McCune appointed a task force to examine fee problems and the SFOC is the final solution.
“The committee isn’t as powerful as we hope it will be influential,” said Business Administration Sen. Jay Buller. “If the committee sees something about a fee that it doesn’t like, it can go to the administration and demand an answer to a question.”
The committee will not change the process for creating or abolishing fees, Buller said, but it will be able to evaluate the uses of fees and make recommendations to the Student Senate and the administration.
“This is quite possibly one of the most important things SG has done in 10 years,” Fisher said.
Buller said some of the fees that could be examined by the SFOC include the Performing Arts fee and The Phone fee.
The Performing Arts fee supports new programs and events in music, theater and dance. Buller said past SG administrations have had problems obtaining records for the exact uses of this fee.
The Phone is a 24-hour crisis intervention and suicide prevention service started years ago by SG. The Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center now operates the service, and Fisher said he wants to review the possibility of outside funding for The Phone.
“The big problem with a lot of fees agreed to in the past is they were written very vaguely,” Buller said.
The committee’s job will be to research these fees, determine how they are being spent and if they need to be reallocated. McCune said the committee will make regular public reports on its findings and annual reports on every fee.
The SFOC will consist of the SG President, the Student Senate Speaker, four senators appointed by the Senate Speaker, three appointees by the SG President and several ex officio members from various administrative departments.
“We wanted a committee that had both legislative and executive branch involvement,” Fisher said.
Kayla Gagnet