Who proposed fee hike for Athletics?

news@dailylobo.com

After the Board of Regents raised student fees for Athletics, one member of student government is questioning the transparency of the UNM administration.

Graduate and Professional Student Association President Marisa Silva said that during the regents’ budget summit last week, Associate Vice President of Budget Planning and Analysis Andrew Cullen initially misrepresented the Athletics fee increase as a recommendation by the Strategic Budget Leadership Team. Silva said this was not the case.

“At the budget summit, (the fee increase) was presented as part of the SBLT’s recommendations, which, when (Cullen) was questioned about it, he backtracked and said that it was a suggestion from Finance and Facilities Committee of the Board of Regents,” Silva said. “But initially, he presented the Athletics increase as an SBLT recommendation, which it was not.”

To be eligible for student fee funding, individual departments file an application to the Student Fee Review Board, which creates a list of preliminary recommendations. The recommendation are then passed to the SBLT, which has the power to change the recommendations, but generally does not. The recommendations are then passed to the regents, which has the final say on the exact amount of student fees each applicant gets.

At the budget summit, the regents ignored SFRB and SBLT’s recommendation to keep next year’s Athletics student fee amount the same as this year’s $131.75 per student. Instead, the board increased student fee funding for Athletics by a total of about $900,000, which increased the per-student fee cost for Athletics by $33.45 to $165.20 per student.

Silva said she first heard of the proposal to increase student fee funding for Athletics when Regent Jamie Koch introduced it in a Finance and Facilities meeting on April 5. But she said that until the budget summit, she was not aware of the regents’ decision to act on it.

Silva said the SBLT has informally supported SFRB’s recommendations, and ended talks about the recommendations on March 27 before the Athletics increase was introduced at the Finance and Facilities meeting. She said the increase was confusingly introduced during the budget summit.

“It was very cloudy, the way it was presented, and I think that that is something that we as an institution need to work on,” she said. “It should be clear who is making these suggestions and proposals and who is not, and who is ingenious to present one regent’s idea as having come from an entire body.”

But Cullen said he did his best to clarify at the summit that the increase was not a recommendation from the SBLT. He said he believes that the decision making-process of the regents was transparent, and that the increase was a reasonable move.

“At the regents’ meeting, I tried to make it very clear that it wasn’t the recommendation of the SBLT,” he said. “I think (the regents) are very transparent. Everything was discussed in public meetings and they were very clear on why it was increased.”

Silva said the University should be more transparent about its decision-making processes.

“UNM needs to work on aligning its processes,” she said. “It’s a problem when the transparency is concentrated at the bottom with us students, when we all have to be held at a very high standard of accountability. As you move higher and higher, there’s less transparency.”

Silva said she is upset about regents’ decision to increase the fee for Athletics.

“I think it’s rash to increase student fees just on Athletics,” she said. “Issuing a 33 percent increase to one applicant is going to be problematic when it comes time to ask students if they’re going to be able to shoulder an additional fee increase to the proposed wellness center.”

Recently, the University announced a series of seven proposals for possible renovations of Johnson Center and of Student Health and Counseling facilities, which could result in a further increase in student fees.

Associated Students of UNM President Caroline Muraida said the regents increased the Athletics fee to reflect the average student fee contributions to Athletics at other Mountain West Conference universities.

But she said it was not rational to base the increase just on other athletic departments’ averages because the averages did not take into account all relevant information, such as individual universities’ institutional funding, ticket sales, and other related factors.

“Our argument was that their calculation of the MWC was not only inaccurate but also fairly arbitrary,” she said. “Each of the other universities in the conference has different methods of generating revenue. Just to increase in that sole reason alone is not the wisest business decision.”

Muraida said that in recent years, the regents have upheld or made only minor changes to the SFRB and SBLT’s recommendations — except for those involving Athletics. She said the regents have increased student fees for Athletics drastically during the past three years.

“The regents have a responsibility to maintain a balanced budget to UNM,” she said. “But as far as the pattern from the last two years, we saw our (Athletics) fees go up from $88 in fiscal year 2010 to $165 per semester. What we’re seeing is a doubling of contribution to one particular applicant without an articulated explanation of what we’re receiving in return.”

According to a transcript of a presentation made during the regents’ budget summit, the regents accepted 25 of the 27 recommendations made by the SFRB this year. In addition to raising the fee for Athletics, the regents decided not to fund University Libraries with student fees, but instead with Instruction and General funding, which is funding provided by the state.

Muraida said that she was in favor of using I&G funding for University Libraries. But she said the regents failed to consider the students’ interest when they approved the Athletics increase.

“We ask them to respect the Student Fee Review Board process by honoring the integrity of our policy and allowing students to have the first say in recommending allocations in funds,” Muraida said.

“We can only hope for a better process next fall.”

Muraida said the SFRB and the SBLT are communicating with the regents about the increase. She said that although the increase seems to be final already, the board will still discuss it at its next meeting in May.

Muraida said she urges students to be more vocal about this issue.

“I think the more the students know, the more they can be involved,” she said. “And the more we’re involved, the more we’re heard.”