Show The hunt for for L 1 student fees John Colaizzi Columnist had several students IVE I'VE ask me about what our student fees are used for so back in April I started looking into it I wanted to find some ways that the administration was using this money to tomake tomake tomake make the students student's college college college col col- col- col lege experience better First a little background on how much money Iss is s involved If students each paid 80 a quarter in student student stu stu- stu- stu dent den t fees for the three f quarters of the 1991 1990 school year that would be in student fees Fees will be going up to 82 next year The student student stu stu- student dent body in the form of the executive council controls a little under in student feest fees t This leaves over 25 million million milk mil mil- k lion in the hands of the administration Where ii does all this money go A pie chart from student student student stu stu- stu- stu dent services shows the j following breakdown for each 80 Building 28 Library 1 S1 College Center Cen Cen- Center f ter 17 Alumni 1 Servicing Ser Ser- J 1 9 Insurance 4 Athletics 6 Computer i x 3 Intramural 4 and Activities 8 t I started with the basic r assumption that whatever 7 was done don e wit with h. h t this his money I as a student had a right to know I The hunt began In early April I approached approached ap ap- pro ached Judd Morgan vice president of Student Services about where the money goes He provided the pie chart mentioned fi above When r Q questioned k about the details of how the money was being spent he offered copies of the budgets The problem with budgets is if you j. j have budgeted for F paper paperclips clips and you spend half of it on paper clips and the other half on pencils pen pen- on the budget it all shows as paper clips When I pointed this out to Judd and asked for forthe forthe the detail lines of the expenditures expenditures expenditures ex ex- he explained that it would take several weeks to gather and that he would have to pull someone away from servo servIng serving o ing students at the win win- dows dowse dowset t Sounds good but what f- f happened to the days of r the computer where one person sits down and sets up a job run and you have havethe havethe havethe the information the next day I find it hard to believe that the accounting on this campus is done manually The hunt went on Discussing this In an informal meeting after the publications council on April 10 Curtis Smout College Center director said that he could get this information if I requested it in writing The request was submitted on April 12 On May 7 in reply to toa a question of when the Information information information in- in formation would be forthcoming Smout said that he was unable to obtain obtain obtain ob ob- tain it And on Later that week I stopped Heber Hunt business business business busi busi- ness vice president in the quad and asked him what had to be done to get this information He said that if Judd would ok it he would release the figures t to ome me And on Back to Judd with a written request He initialed initialed ini ini- initialed it Success was at hand On to Heber's office in the AD building He was not in so I explained the request to a member of his staff They said I could have the Information information information tion soon Probably the next day Wow I love it when a plan comes together And falls a apart part Two days later the request request request re re- re- re quest was still sitting in Heber's office and the staff had been instructed to wait On May 20 I asked Heber what was happening with it and he said he was too busy to handle it just now When asked for a target date he said he was too busy to give one Must be really busy And that's where the hunt case stands I still believe that how this money oney is being spent is a matter of interest to the st students dents and that they have the right to know And the administration has never said anything to contradict this belief I just haven't been able to see the figures yet And that makes me wonder why I |