Next week’s Student Association elections ballot will include a referendum to determine whether the student activity fee will remain mandatory for undergraduate students.
The routine, but high-stakes, referendum will almost certainly keep the student activity fee mandatory, but the consequences of a voluntary fee would be severe, according to SA leaders.
The per-semester $92.50 fee directly funds all SA operations, including Off Campus College Transport, Harpur’s Ferry, student group budgets and SA programming and events. Without the fee, the SA’s more than $2 million budget for next year would be decimated.
“The referendum is very straightforward,” said Aaron Ricks, SA treasurer and a junior majoring in political science. “If this doesn’t pass, our operations would essentially be cut by more than half … Budgets would have to be cut everywhere, perhaps down to zero for most groups, to maintain essential services.”
SUNY Board of Trustees policy mandates that student governments hold a campus-wide referendum on the issue every two years.
“The language [of the ballot question] is the language the Board of Trustees wants us to use … to ask whether or not it stays mandatory,” said Karl Bernhardsen, SA vice president of finance.
Bernhardsen said that a voluntary student activity fee would be unprecedented.
“It wouldn’t be good,” Bernhardsen said. “We would have to voluntarily collect the student activity fee and that’s never happened, so I’m not sure how we would go about that, but it would mean we’d have to completely rethink budget allocations for the coming year.”
The SA has roughly $1 million in retained earnings — a “rainy day fund,” according to Ricks — but the referendum’s failure would leave that pool as the SA’s only backstop against complete insolvency.
Ryan Naru, general manager of WHRW, is in favor of a mandatory fee, like all student group presidents who were asked about the issue by Pipe Dream yesterday.
“I don’t think there’s any incentive for students to vote this referendum down,” said Naru, a senior majoring in economics. “I’m confident in the students’ ability to make a decision.”
Two years ago, the SA successfully moved to increase the activity fee from $86.50 to $92.50 per semester. Many student government leaders at the time argued that the hike would preserve a floundering OCCT and provide a more robust budget for the SA Programming Board.
After the 2009 increase passed in a landslide, a grievance was filed against the SA Elections Committee challenging the validity of the referendum. Russell Heiman, now a senior majoring in management, claimed that poll-sitters were promoting the fee hike as students were casting votes. He also criticized the SA’s use of SA-Line emails to endorse the referendum.
The elections were held up as valid, but the SA Judicial Board acknowledged in its ruling that there were possible violations of election procedures. Using SA-Line emails to actively endorse ballot questions was made illegal after the grievance, and Bernhardsen said that the E-Board has been careful to make sure this referendum is valid.
“We have to look at the specific language of what we can put out in the SA-Line because it is in a way related to an election,” Bernhardsen said. “There was a little bit of a kerfuffle a few years ago because someone specifically stated [students] should vote [yes]. We are able to, I believe, and I have to look into this, just announce the fact that this is an item on the ballot, look into it and make your decision.”