OPINION: Administrative Intervention Renders Student Fee Committee Useless

("Money - Savings" by 401(K) - 2012 via Flickr)

Administrative intervention has rendered this year’s Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC) effectively useless.

At the committee’s meeting last week, something happened that I don’t think I have ever seen before. Two student committee members—Beverly Luna and Robert Bennett, student government officers both—called on the committee to approve a budget increase for their department, student government. I have found most student members usually lack the confidence to speak up about something they believe in, much less while in front of seasoned staff and faculty. However, these students believed in their program and had the courage to advocate for it. I support them.

However, according to Vice President Ona Tolliver, an ex-officio member of SFAC who responded to their request, someone (she did not reveal who) already instructed other service departments to request a “flat” budget for the coming fiscal year. ("Flat" budget means a budget without an increase in comparison to the current year.)

Though Tolliver did acknowledge that the committee had the power to entertain requests for increases if it so desired, she also indicated that she thought the committee should first notify all service departments before it entertained requests for budget increases from present members since other departments were told to request flat budgets. She said she believed they should get the chance to make requests, too, in order to have a transparent process.

With regard to why the flat budget request occurred, Tolliver told the committee that the university failed to accurately forecast student enrollment in the past and therefore successfully predict how much revenue The Student Services Fee will have this fall. 

Therefore, this year, someone in authority instructed departments to request a flat budget until the university can confirm how much revenue the fee account takes in after the Census Date in the fall.

So in the end, though the two students had the option to proceed, Luna and Bennett decided against it and were told they could consider resubmitting their request in October when the committee might meet again to entertain one-time requests.

So, in recap, an unidentified administrator jumps ahead of the committee and effectively tells all requesting departments what their next year's budget is going to be (flat) and the students who want a budget increase because they believe in their program get talked out of doing so because for them to do so would be unfair to the staff members who run the other departments. 

This administrator—whoever it is—is way out of line. Student fee money belongs to the students, not to the university. Therefore, student money is no place for the university's intervention. 

It is up to the student body to determine how to use its own money. Maybe the students don’t want a flat budget. Maybe their representatives want to see some changes, as Luna and Bennett did. However, this is now impossible because an administrator intervened. This person has decided for them and so has virtually rendered the committee's role pointless and effectively disrupted these students' efforts to win greater appropriations money--their own money--for their own program.

The administration must respect the student body’s sovereignty and honor SFAC's role so that disruption of student oversight of their own money does not occur. Otherwise, the university president will determine The Student Services Appropriation Budget without student input, effectively using student money for the administration’s priorities.

The student body president should write to the UT-Tyler President Kirk Calhoun in protest and insist that this does not happen again. I feel it is too late for the committee to make-up for lost time now as some members are graduating as soon as next week. Furthermore, to make new appointments at this point is to effectively compose a new committee. The administration must learn to respect student sovereignty and student leaders ought to object to ensure this never happens again.

It’s student money we're talking about and part of The Student Fee Advisory Committee's role is ensure that students can control it as they wish.

Twitter: @jhescock12 

Feature image: "Money - Savings" by 401(K) - 2012 via Flickr

*Editor's Note: This essay was updated for flow on Tuesday, April 25 at 6:55 P.M. CST.

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