SUFAC Minutes
Date: October 17, 2011
Time and Location: 5:30 PM; Student Senate Chambers; Cartwright Center
I. Call to Order
a. 5:32 PM
II. Cost Factor Increases
a. Kristin Stanley: The maximum we are expecting is a 3% increase in the
ceiling regarding supplies and equipment and it does not include personnel
costs.
b. Rykal: We can decide on what we give them, but it has been mentioned that
inflation is pretty low right now.
c. Dr. Ringgenberg: Some of the bus travel with music would be impacted by
that. If I am not mistaken, groups have not had a raise in two years.
d. Vo: If we allow this, what impact would it have on the total seg fee?
i. Kristin Stanley: Maybe a small impact, otherwise you may have to
look at reserves. I can get more specific information for next week if
it is necessary. The sum of the total fee has to be 3% in this situation.
e. Rykal: One thing we could do if we wanted to is give them an increase that
would be added to the end amount by 3% and in the end go through and make
it equal that 3% cap at the end of each line item. We also have to take in
account that we may increase the Racquet and that would be a much larger
number and would impact how we can increase everyone else. What would a
3% increase be?
i. Dr. Ringgenberg: It would be about $3.64 a student per year.
f. Vo: I think we cut travel a few years ago and we could go back and increase
that again.
i. Dr. Ringgenberg: Potentially, since most of the fine arts and CAB
travel by bus that would be considered non-allocable. While the food
and lodging would be allocable.
g. Kristin Stanley: Sorry I don’t have exact numbers but I would be able to get
that information to you via email if you need it.
h. Nelson: A $3.64 increase is like nothing in the broad spectrum because it is
less than the price of a meal. I think it is our responsibility to keep it as low as
possible for students though. I think increasing travel again might be good
because we did have to cut some of it in the past. I am mixed on this issue.
i. Rykal: Derek made a good point that that increase is not much, but we have
to realize that everything else on the student bill is going to rise next year. Do
we do our part to keep student costs down or support these endeavors?
j. Karlstrand: This would be an increase among many others on the bill. Are
segregated fees going to rise by anything else other than this?
i. Most likely because it is on the same bill as a seg fee.
k. Dr. Ringgenberg: So what happens holistically if you don’t raise the allocable
3%?
i. Rykal: We can make up that difference.
l.
m.
n.
o.
p.
q.
r.
s.
ii. Dr. Ringgenberg: Often that increase is going to be added to some
other budgets.
Palmer: How are we for the reserve?
i. Dr. Ringgenberg: I think we are right where we want to be.
Holt: I think we should do the 3% increase on the allocable.
Dr. Ringgenberg: You could have a motion to increase between 0% and 3%
depending on your need. You also have a by-law that no one that had a deficit
gets an increase.
Nelson: Put in perspective though, the problem with tuition isn’t allocable seg
fees. The problem lies with the increase done by the state. Seg fees aren’t
creating these problems.
Dr. Ringgenberg: It’s more of if you held the line, no matter how small that
line may be.
Motion to allow all the entities to increase between 0-2.5% of their total
budget.
i. Vo/Nelson
ii. Discussion:
1. Kristin Stanley: What about the people who already submitted
their budgets?
a. Dr. Ringgenberg: We could allow them to revise their
budgets until a certain date.
iii. Call to Question
iv. Vote:
1. Fails (Yes – 5, No – 1, Abstentions – Palmer & Doering)
Discussion:
1. Doering: I abstained because I believe it is a vote of the
students.
2. Palmer: Same with me, it seems like the by-laws are kind of
forcing us to vote and if it is necessary I would vote yes.
3. Kristin Stanley: I don’t necessarily understand why we would
tell people to increase their budget if they do not necessarily
need it.
4. Vo: I think that if a program wants to expand we might want
to just smooth out the increase by a few percent each year.
5. Karlstrand: So is this motion saying that if someone comes to
us asking for an increase we can only give them 2.5% or that
they are only advised to ask for 2.5%?
6. Dr. Ringgenberg: I would like to see a ceiling being set.
Motion to allow all the entities to request an increase between 0% and 2.51%
of their total budget. There is a cap of 2.51% on the total budget regarding
these entities.
i. Karlstrand/Breunig
1. Discussion:
a. Karlstrand: I thought our by-laws were that you can’t
get an increase if you went over budget.
b. Rykal: There is also something in our by-laws that
allows special deals that would neglect that rule in our
by-laws.
2. Call to Question
3. Vote:
a. Passed (Yes – 8, No – 0, Abstentions – 0)
III. Capital Fund Requests and Contingency Fund Requests
a. Rykal: The vocabulary is overlapping and perhaps for the sanity of the Chair
next year there should be set terminology for next year that is sent out to all
the entities. We should try to stick to correct names.
b. Dr. Ringgenberg: Do you want to do hearings Monday night or do you want
to wait an extra week?
i. Rykal: Basically we could cancel next week’s meeting and that would
mean that we would have to meet on Halloween for certain. If we
don’t have quorum we can’t conduct any business. Without having all
of the capital fund requests you can’t necessary make an educated
decision. We could do tours next week, but that may be hard to set up
in three days.
ii. Vo: I have a question about budget hearings. Does the chair of the
sub-committee come in?
1. Rykal: The sub-committee pushes forward what they think are
legitimate requests and we are able to call in to ask more
questions.
iii. Palmer: Could we do the one-shot deliberations on November 7th? I
think it is a bad idea to schedule meetings when we have committee
members who have children that may be participating in Halloween
activities.
1. Vo: I think that one-shots were discussed for two weeks last
year because we lacked information. I think that the people
who are being brought in will be able to answer the extra
information that we would get from these tours. Perhaps
having members of our committee attending the meetings of
the sub-committees would help.
2. Rykal: This suggestion does make a lot of sense, but it does
require that those attending come prepared to share the
information with our entire committee.
3. Stephanie Holt will attend first Student Services meeting and
Kristin Stanley will attend the second. Riley will attend the
Student Orgs meeting on Friday.
c. Dr. Ringgenberg: When do you want the allocable budgets?
i. Budget hearings on November 14th for the allocables and we may need
to push the non-allocables to November 21st and 28th.
ii. The allocable budget has to go to Senate and once you finish with
those you can review the non-allocables on the 7th.
iii. Capital fund requests would be on November 7th. We went on tours
before we deliberated and since things had to be safety related we were
able to throw a lot of things out and narrow down on time. I think we
would end up touring things we don’t necessarily need to.
iv. (Final schedule of when we will discuss these issues will be sent via
email.)
v. For clarification, we will not be meeting next week or the week after.
IV. Adjournment
a. Nelson/Vo
b. 6:41 PM