SUNY-ESF’s Undergraduate Student Association passed a motion to increase the student activity fee last Wednesday.
With the motion’s passage, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry student activity fee will increase from $147 to $175 per year.
The motion passed with most in favor, none opposed and one abstention.
The increase was needed to cover the cost of rising insurance rates for campus events and lift financial burden, according to the organization.
“Without raising the fee, we were spending in the red,” said Richard Monaco, a board of members representative of the Undergraduate Student Association. “On top of that, we had increasing costs every year that as a Student Association we needed to deal with.”
The extra $28 per student will also cover an additional four free meals for students on campus through the school’s “Thank Goodness” and “Morning Munch” events, as well as an increased budget for student organizations.
Monaco said he believes the increase was a good amount.
At the town hall, a presentation showed this fee would still be the lowest in the SUNY system.
“It was enough to put us in the black but not too much of a financial burden on our students,” Monaco said.
SUNY-ESF’s student activity fee is currently spent mostly on Oakie’s Activity Council, which costs about $89,375 annually.
OAC organizes all Undergraduate Student Association events, such as Earth Week, the spring banquet, the December soirée and the Thank Goodness and Morning Munch events.
The second highest expense covered by the student activity fee is money granted to student organizations, which totals about $57,095 a year. The rest of the fee is divided among staff support fees, Undergraduate Student Association meetings and supplies, audit expenses and insurance, in addition to other student-centered expenses.
The increased student activity fee and most of the accompanying adjustments will go into effect next semester.
The one exception is the new budget for clubs. That change will not start until the 2018-19 academic year, according to Christopher Ludlam, vice president of the Undergraduate Student Association.
“The goal is to get us out of the red now and to keep us out of the red for the next five years,” Ludlam said.
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