Quarterly fee to increase by $1

The Services and Activities Fee (SAF) Committee yesterday approved a $1 increase to next year's fee, totaling $97 per full-time student per quarter.

The committee deliberated over keeping the budget the same at $96, but members were not willing to cut funds from any budgets proposed by organizations funded by the fee.

The committee yesterday also distributed money collected through this year's fee. The budget totals $9,184,616 in comparison to last year's $9,083,163. That budget leaves the committee $27,000 in the red.

The most significant addition to this year's fee was an increase to the Intramural Activities operating budget. According to committee chair Kara Hendrick, the extra funds came because of an increase in the Intramural Activities Building's (IMA) staff.

"Increases in the budget are needed to accommodate for the additions to the IMA," said Hendrick. "With a bigger space, more people are needed to man the facility."

Hall Health received the majority of the funds with $5.5 million.

Even though the student health center received a large sum, it typically requires a majority of the fee and stayed well within the its expected 2.2 percent inflation increase.

The committee also increased the budget for the Student Activities Office by $81,302 to $269,837 to accommodate for hiring two additional advisers.

"We have had a huge increase in the number of [student groups] and no increase in staff over the last 15 years," said Lincoln Johnson, director of the Student Activities Office and a member of the committee. "Our advisers are just plain overworked."

The committee discussed hiring only one new adviser for the Student Activities Office, which Johnson said would be much appreciated. However, the committee decided that since it was the only organization with a proposed cut, it would be fair to allocate funds for another adviser.

The committee discussed completely dropping the $28,237 that Classroom Support Services receives. Members of the committee said the University should fund Classroom Support Services, but the committee made an exception in the past to help support the entity. Members said they feared the University would push the committee to fund other programs the UW is responsible for and said they would address those issues if presented in the future.

Controversy also came along the lines of the Ethnic Culture Center's budget. Last year, the committee gave the center funding for a graduate-student adviser but the funding was not used for one. Instead, the money was used for other operational expenses such as buying video and video-editing equipment.

Like the SAF Committee, the Student Technology Fee Committee is also responsible for allocating student funds. Last month, the committee allocated $4,447,333.18 to academic departments and the Burke Museum to fund technology proposals which would best benefit students, according to Matt Hoffman, a database administrator for the committee.