McCARTHY

Budget cuts require added fee for spring

By: HAYLEY PETERSON

Posted: 12/4/08

The Board of Regents approved Wednesday an additional $100 fee for University students to help meet an 8 percent budget cut plan.

A University-wide e-mail was sent to students Wednesday night to explain the action and that the fee would be assessed to student accounts on Dec. 12 as a "special spring semester fee." The fee must be paid by Jan. 22 to avoid spring semester schedule cancellation.

Students will pay out of pocket, as the HOPE scholarship will not cover the fee.

Also included in the plan are more maintenance deferrals, and the University will contribute 5 percent less to employee PPO and HMO health plans.

As a result, employees enrolled in these plans will pay higher premiums ranging from $17 to $65 a month.

Student Government Association President Connor McCarthy, who attended the teleconference with about 30 students from the University and Georgia Tech, said the regents agreed to "increase communication to make sure there are 48 hours of discussion" prior to future fee raise decisions.

Regents were not welcoming to the students' input, said Christie Haynes, SGA external affairs co-chair. Haynes said the regents told SGA in August no fee would be added unless the budget cuts reached 10 percent, which is why the SGA had not yet acted.

"Our biggest problem was not the fee," she said. "We know there's a budget problem ... We probably would have been an advocate for this [if notified sooner], but they thought they would sneak it under without students noticing. [Regents] said this issue was tabled ... they lied to our face."

McCarthy said the regents waived the 704 policy - which requires 50 percent student input in institutional requests for mandatory fees - on grounds the request was made at the regents' level.

"The spirit behind that policy was defeated in having them waive it," McCarthy said.

The required student fee varies across all institutions in the University System of Georgia - $100 for research institutions, $75 for comprehensive universities and $50 for two-year colleges.

The difference in fees accounts for the varying operating costs of the individual schools, Millsaps said. The fee dollars will remain at each institution to be used wherever that administration decides it is needed most.

"We try to do things that have a minimal impact on the classroom," Millsaps said.