By JACK ARMSTRONG
News Editor
Western’s Incidental Fee Committee and Associated Students of Western Oregon have both voted to ratify controversial budget decisions made by IFC for the 2015-2016 academic year.
If approved by university President Mark Weiss, the per-term fee for 2015-2016 will increase $5 from 2014-2015 to $327, or $981 per year total.
The IFC is a group of student leaders supervised by staff advisers. The only voting members of the process are the students who sit on the committee.
Incidental fees are collected separate from students’ tuition every term and are used for student clubs and activities that fall outside the realm of academics.
IFC voted to uphold the majority of the preliminary decision Monday, Feb. 16, but several changes were made before the budget was ratified.
The committee first considered the changes to the overall budgets of each funded area. Once again the debate focused on athletics and the possible 5 percent cut.
Several of the voting members relayed the information they had gathered during the open hearings, and Barbara Dearing, executive director of intercollegiate athletics, made a final appeal to reverse the decision.
The committee ultimately ratified all of the general budgets from the preliminary decision for each funded area.
Every budget except for athletics was approved with a unanimous vote. Only six of the eight committee members voted to uphold the 5 percent cut to athletics while two members abstained.
While calling the meeting to order, IFC Chair Quinn Forner addressed the recent debate surrounding the divisive cut to athletics. “Any decision will make a lot of people unhappy, especially in a lean budget year like the one we are facing,” Forner said.
After the general budgets were approved, the committee moved on to vote concerning enhancement requests.
Enhancements differ from the overall budgets because they are an increase in funding for an organization to be put towards a specifically requested item.
While most of the funded areas had no change to the decisions made about enhancements in the preliminary budget, athletics, creative arts and campus recreation experienced reductions in previously approved enhancements.
Athletics had been initially approved for an enhancement to replace
the football program’s coordinator headsets that are used by coaches to talk to each other during the games.
The headset replacement unit, priced at $43,712, was taken away in the final decision leaving athletics with $14,060 budgeted for other
enhancements.
Speaking on the decision to remove the headset funding, Forner said “we recognized the need for additional athlete safety, and we felt other department requests would fill the same need.”
Removing the headset enhancement was intended to free up funds for the creation of electronic athlete medical records, a new weight room treadmill, and padding for the fence surrounding the softball field (a NCAA requirement).
Creative arts had initially been approved funding to continue to offer free tickets for Western students to all on-campus performances and productions. IFC voted down this initial approval.
Committee member Jessica Hand explained that “there wasn’t enough data provided by the department about student attendance to provide
approval,” but she added that if enough evidence could be provided next year, IFC would consider reversing their decision. The committee also decided to deny the hiring of a new drum line instructor for creative arts, reducing the overall enhancements granted to the group by $11,748.
IFC then voted to alter campus recreations’ enhancements by removing the funding allotted to hire a new executive accounting and support specialist for the department. This resulted in the allotted funds being reduced by $32,402.
After IFC voted their final decision, the budget was sent for review by the ASWOU senate on Wednesday, Feb. 18.
ASWOU is the official student government of Western. Members are elected by the student body to serve as representation in various capacities like administrative meetings.
Much like the United States branches of government, ASWOU, IFC, and Western’s administration all act as oversight for each other. Jenessa Ross, ASWOU judicial administrator said, “ASWOU reviews the IFC process, not the numbers submitted.”
Voting on IFC’s process is a way for ASWOU to review the guidelines
and rules that the fee committee followed while making the preliminary and final decisions.
“ASWOU is a check and balance system,” Ross said.
One of the guidelines discussed was student body involvement. ASWOU members noted the official IFC handbook which states that the fee committee must do their best to create a budget that represents the majority opinion of students.
ASWOU’s vote was unanimous with all five voting members expressing confidence that the incidental fee committee had performed their job within the necessary rules and regulations.
Now that ASWOU has ratified IFC’s decision, the process now moves to President Weiss. According to the IFC regulations, Weiss has to make a decision “no later than (5) days” after the budget has been received by his office.
If the president was to decide that the budget presented was unacceptable, IFC would meet again to attempt to reach a compromise.
Disclaimer: The Journal is funded through Incidental Fees via Student Media
