Eric Frey | Incidental Fee Committee Chair

Dear students, I wanted to write to you first to inform you of where we stand as a committee after the preliminary hearings and second to ask you for your input on where you think your fees should go.

Some background — every term students pay an incidental fee to support student-funded activities and organizations. This year the fee is $349 per regular term and $153 for summer term, with projected enrollment next fall being 4,745. We estimate to receive $4,402,604 in revenue if fees do not change. For summer, projected enrollment is 800 students and $123,000 in revenue if fees do not change. For the 2018-2019 school year IFC funded areas requested $4,515,310 for their budgets and an additional $429,896 in enhancements to their budgets —  a total of $4,945,206 requested from the IFC. With the $542,602 difference between requested funds and projected available funds we have to find the balance between raising fees and lowering budgets.

Here is where we stand after preliminary decisions on the funding of the IFC-funded areas:

Abby’s House, Access, Creative Arts , Athletics, Childcare, Extraordinary Travel, Campus Rec-HWC, Campus Rec-Club Sports, Campus Rec-Intramurals, Student Engagement-LIA, Student Engagement-SAB, WOLF Ride, SLCD and the Computer Replacement Fund were all funded at the level requested.

ASWOU was cut by $28,000 with the intent to cut the Oregon Student Association membership, while the ASWOU cut package indicated cuts to Clubs & Orgs and travel funds. Student Media was cut by $3,229 with the intent to reduce printing costs in The Western Journal. Student Engagement Operations was cut by $3,887 with the intent to close the downstairs of the Werner University Center at 10 p.m. when the upstairs closes.

Five areas also requested enhancements to their base budget:

ASWOU requested $4,359 to support SVA National Convention Travel: Approved

Athletics requested $396,505 to fund travel, uniforms, equipment and pre-season expenses: $28,250 was approved — $2,500 for baseball helmets, $4,000 for Basketball Game Fees for not traveling to an opponent[ZS2] , $7,500 for volleyball uniforms, $5,692 for track to replace aging equipment, $2,148 for cross country meet fees for not traveling to opponent, $4,117 for cheerleading uniforms

Student Engagement-Leadership, Inclusion, Activities requested $3,759 to support Siblings Weekend and the Leadership Institute: Approved

Student Engagement-SAB requested $2,685 to fund new SAB location: Approved

WOLF Ride/SLCD requested $22,588 to fund a second driver/navigator and develop a WOLF Ride App: second driver/navigator approved for $17,292.

Overall IFC approved $56,345 in enhancements to the budgets

With the total of $4,536,539 budget and with the projected enrollment we are looking at increasing the Incidental Fee from $349 per term to $360 per term.

The summer budget was $133,674 — $3,975 less than last year, yet we need to increase the summer Incidental Fee from $153 to $167 due to lower summer enrollment projections.

Agendas, minutes, documents, forms and additional info can be found at wou.edu/ifc

Now that you have the facts, this is where I am asking for your input and help:

We want to hear from you.

How do you feel about the overall fee?

What do you feel strongest about in the budgets?

Do you think you benefit enough from the services provided by the fee? How?

What do you think could be improved in the Budget?

What budget item do you disagree with?

What would you like to tell the committee?

You can email the committee at ifc@wou.edu and ifcchair@wou.edu to give us your feedback or you can contact me personally at efrey15@wou.edu.

Thank you for taking the time to read through all this info, please take a few minutes to let us know your thoughts, because the more feedback we get, the better decisions we can make and together we succeed.

TL:DR  We are looking to raise Incidental Fees to $360 to fund IFC-funded areas, looking to cut funds from ASWOU, Student Media and Student Engagement. ifc@wou.edu would like your input and thoughts.

Photo by: Paul F. Davis