MINUTES
Student Activity Fee Board Meeting
Friday, January 28, 2011
111 HUB-Robeson Center
Attendance:
Board Members:
Andrea Dowhower, Asst. VP for Student Affairs
Mary Edgington, Senior Director, Union and Student Activities
Careen Yarnal, Faculty Senate Committee on Student Life, Penn State University Park
Marika Merritt, CCSG Representative, Wilkes Barre
Mohamed Raouda, CCSG President
Paul Ferrera, CCSG Representative, Altoona
Jon Lozano, GSA Representative
Colleen Smith, UPUA Representative
Matthew J. Swatchick, Director of Student Affairs, Penn State Schuylkill via Polycom
Ken Miller, Sr. Director of Student & Enrollment Services Rep, Behrend Campus via Polycom
Mark Donovan, UPAC Chair
Substitute:
Peter Khoury for Jimmy Baker
Welcome and Roll Call
Roll call was taken.
Adoption of the Agenda
A motion to accept the agenda was made by Mohamed Raouda and a second by Mary
Edgington. All were in favor.
Adoption of the Minutes
A motion to approve the minute from December 3, 2010 was made by Mohamed Raouda and a
second was made by Jon Lozano. All were in favor.
Announcements by the Chair
Andrea Dowhower sent a message to the board at the beginning of the week to be prepared to
vote on the fee level for next year. She shared the schedule of the fee approval. This
recommendation needs to be approved today and recommended to VP Damon Sims so that it can
be approved by the President in February. This recommendation will then be shared with the
campuses that will discuss and give their approved levels to Andrea for implementation.
Public Comments (10 – 15 minutes)
No comment from the gallery.
Discussion Items
Item 1 - Fee increase for next year (Reports from UPAC)
Andrea had asked Galen Chelko and Jay Arcuri to prepare some documents from UPAC
showing specific dollar amounts for everyone to review on the past fee levels.
Jay stated that the most noteworthy number for this upcoming year is the increase in number of
standing allocations. A standing allocation means that there is not a cap on the amount of funds
that they can request, and the funds are not restricted. GSA and UPUA already have been
approved for lump sum allocations and that comes off the top before the money goes to UPAC.
Mark stated that the two additional groups have been given this status for next year Homecoming and Movin’ On. Homecoming has not been given an amount yet. They have just
been given the status. Movin’ On has been given both the status and the maximum in which they
can request.
Christian asked if by doing this will it require us to increase the fee substantially. Mark stated
that Homecoming probably will not be requesting a larger amount of money but by giving them
this status, it will give them more flexibility with their budget.
An increase would be necessary because as Jay stated, UPAC covers insurance for all groups and
that will likely increase. Ken stated that food costs have increased significantly, and Mary stated
that travel costs are increasing as well.
Christian asked if we didn’t increase the fee, would that hurt us later because of not having the
extra monies for these increased costs.
Andrea asked Ken what the history is of increasing the fee, and Ken stated that mostly it has
been increasing at $1 at a time but that there have been some suggestions of increasing it to $10,
$15 or even $20 at a time.
Andrea stated that there may be concern at Old Main to increase fees at a substantial rate. She
also stated that the number of student organizations have increased by around 200 in recent
years. This means increased requests for UPAC funds.
Jon stated that he talked with GSA and they felt that increasing the fee by more than a $1 would
not be good. They are in favor of a modest increase of $1 and not any more due to the potential
for a tuition increase.
Christian is torn and agrees that $1 is enough but we don’t want to set a trend that prevents new
organizations from obtaining any funding.
Mark stated that a modest increase of $5 would help with the additional $400,000 increase in
requests projected for next year. By not increasing it to that level, it would diminish the quality
of events. We now have set the standard at high quality events and by decreasing the amounts
we could fund groups; it could potentially mean we would offer mediocre events.
Paul stated that by keeping the fee at a minimal would force the allocation committees to
conserve and really take a closer look at what they are funding.
Jon asked if there are other standing allocations that are to increase and who would be impacted.
Jay stated that according to UPAC funding, they cannot reduce an allocation by more than 10%
from the previous year.
Mary stated that we need to think about the legal services request so we need to remember that
they have asked for .25 so if you increase the fee by $1, it is actually only going to be 75 cents
going to UPAC.
Andrea stated that we are discussing the fee first because if the board doesn’t recommend an
increase, then there will be no reason to continue a discussion about legal services.
Mo asked Mark what he thought about the current UP allocations and where does he see things
for next year. Mo asked Mark what his recommendation would be if he had to make one for a fee
increase. Mark stated that $3 would be sufficient. It would help with the projected deficit of
$400,000.
Jon asked Mark if they looked at the possibility of funding more conservatively. Mark stated
that it is a first come first serve process so conserving is not really an option.
Mo stated that it is up to this group to either make a statement with the administration that we are
willing to make cuts and sacrifice our student programs or to increase this fee and remain
competitive in our programs.
Jay asked everyone to look at the sheet they shared. They allocated $1 million to student groups
and about $2.4M to the groups with standing allocations.
Mary asked Mark if they felt that they would run out of money before the end of the year. Ken
asked if they are on “E OR IS THE GAS LIGHT ON”? The “gas light is on” was the response.
Andrea challenged the UP government groups to think about their own standing funds and what
message were they going to send about their funds.
Christian asked if it was true that there is a 2% recycling of money at the end of the year. The
answer to this is yes that is true. Recycled money is gone. It is not reassigned.
Mo asked Mark if there is some tracking of the groups and how well they are doing with their
activities.
Paul said that it appears that they are approving about 95% of requests and at the campuses they
don’t approve near that amount. Mark explained that UPAC assisted students in the request
process reducing the requests for funds that UPAC is unable to allocate.
Mo stated that there is nothing in the handbook that states that a group must hold a successful
program. Andrea stated that this is a much larger conversation than we can have at this board
meeting.
Mo stated that we go year by year on this but we aren’t looking at the long term. The groups
keep getting better and better each year and these groups are being successful. There needs to be
some discussion about the future needs.
Jay stated that UPAC funds do not cover 100% of programming expenses. The groups are
required to cover at least 20% of their own costs. The groups do come in and know in advance
what they can get prior to being approved or denied. UPAC works with them prior to them
coming in front of the allocation board.
Colleen stated that this is one of the fees where the students can actually see their money being
used in a good way or in their best interest. There is a need to maintain the budget and the
requests will be coming at a higher rate in the future. We need to not over tax the students but
we also need to maintain what we allocate.
Mo asked if there was a projection on next year’s enrollment. Andrea stated that the projected
enrollment at UP is to remain constant.
Mo felt that the conversation was exhausted and a motion needed to be placed on the table.
Mark made a motion to increase the fee by $3 taking the fee to $82 at University Park. Colleen
Smith seconded.
Peter Y
Mark Y
Mary Y
Paul N
Jon Y
Marika Abstain
Ken Y
Christian N
Mo Abstain
Colleen Y
Matthew Y
Careen Y
8 Y / 2 No / 2 Abstentions
This is a recommendation that will be presented to the president. Two dollars of the current fee
funds Legal Services.
Currently the campus tiers are $79, $74 and $64. Twelve of the 19 campuses are at $79; four at
$74; and three at $64. Mo asked if the campuses can select their tiers and Andrea stated that they
do have the flexibility to choose their tiers.
Mo stated that he has researched wage information and he does not approve SA funds being used
for wages. Heide stated that this was a policy clarification in April of last year. Marika stated
that this needs to have a time line attached to it. Wages shouldn’t be ongoing.
Ken and Matthew both stated that their funds at their respective campuses are almost exhausted.
Mo stated that some will move to the upper tier. He hasn’t heard from all of the campuses.
Mo asked Ken and Matthew what their peers are staying. They both stated that they don’t want
to increase and make things more difficult for the students but would like to see something
increase steadily instead of a large lump sum increase in a forthcoming year. Ken stated that no
one is interested in seeing a $10 or $20 increase but all agree that some increase is needed.
Ken stated that his recollection was that they never voted on UP and campuses separately in the
past. Andrea apologized. She did not realize that and the motion and vote should have been for
the top tier for all campuses.
Ken said that he would recommend raising the middle tier to $77 and the lower tier to $66.
Andrea stated that we do need to go back and revisit that tier level.
Mo Raouda made a motion to reconsider the previous motion and vote. Jon Lozano seconded
this.
Mark would like to restate his motion to increase the top tier to $83.
More discussion was needed.
Matthew stated that in reality a $5 increase is not high. A value meal is more expensive than a
$5 increase. He would like to see all the tiers increase by $5 each; $3 won’t do much for his
campus. He asked to amend the motion to $5 for each tier.
Ken was asked what his thoughts were. He said that in the past they have been supportive of the
higher increase because of their deficit.
Mo made a request that the motion be pulled so that they could have a legislative caucus. A
second was made by Paul Ferrera. Andrea gave 2 minutes for the caucus discussion.
Two minutes. Board resumed.
Andrea wanted to make clear that last year UPAC only had $77 to work with because $2 went to
legal services so they did not receive an increase.
Pete suggested to help with evening the gaps in the three tiers, he recommended having a $3
increase in the bottom tier, a $4 increase in the middle tier and a $5 increase in the top tier.
Mo stated that he did not want an increase of $5 for the top tier.
Jon stated that voting on the group is fine but he is not supportive of voting for a $5 high tier. He
felt this was punitive considering we are expecting a tuition increase.
Jon Lozano made a motion to increase all three tiers by $3 each and a second was made by Mark
Donovan.
A roll call vote was taken.
Careen Y
Colleen Y
Matt Y
Mo N
Christian N
Ken N
Marika N
Jon Y
Paul N
Mary Y
Mark Y
Peter N
Y6 N6
Andrea voted N
Motion failed.
Mark asked what the opposition was for this motion.
Ken stated that he voted no because the $5 is a better proposal and gives more flexibility for the
allocating groups. Marika stated that $3 didn’t give enough wiggle room for the allocating
groups. Mo stated that they haven’t heard from 19 campuses and the board needs to put them in
the best position possible.
Andrea voted no because she didn’t want to decide the vote. Andrea stated that in the years that
she has collected the fee no one has ever lowered their tier. They have only moved to a higher
tier or remained at the same tier with the increase.
Matthew needed clarification on how many campuses are at the lowest tier. Only three are at that
level. He suggested losing the bottom level and having three other levels. The highest tier is the
UP level and then having just two tiers for the campuses.
Mark asked if money could be recycled or carried forward from year to year.
Colleen stated that we are at a standstill and she isn’t in favor of the $3, $4, $5 for the tiers.
Marika stated that if a campus jumps tiers that potentially they could jump $11 in a year.
Mo asked for what the previous tiers were. Heide shared from the previous minutes $64, $74,
$76, and $79 for UP.
Mo suggested a $2, $3, $3 increase.
Marika stated that she was under the impression that a decision would happen in March and not
now.
Paul asked for Christian’s reason for his no as Christian stated that he is torn because a lot of
students he has talked to are working not a part of an organization so therefore do not receive the
benefits of these funds. What message is he going to send to those students by approving an
increased fee that they don’t utilize?
Mark Donovan made a motion to increase the top tier by $3. A second was made by Ken Miller.
A roll call vote was taken.
Ken Y
Matt Y
Careen Y
Christian N
Mo Y
Colleen Y
Mary Y
Mark Y
Paul Y
Jon Y
Marika Y
Peter Y
11 Y 1 N
The recommendation passed to increase the top tier to $82 for UP and those campuses that elect
the top tier.
Marika suggested a $4 increase for the bottom two tiers. This would then allow campuses at the
top tier to move to a lower tier to avoid an increase.
A motion was made by Marika Merritt to increase the bottom two tiers by $4 each. A second
was made by Jon Lozano.
A roll call vote was taken.
Peter Y
Mark Y
Mary Y
Paul Y
Jon Y
Marika Y
Ken Y
Christian was absent from vote.
Mo Y
Colleen Abstained
Matthew Y
Careen Y
10 Yes 1 Abstention and 1 Absent from vote.
Recommendations to Vice President
A recommendation will be sent to Damon Sims to increase the fee levels by $4 for the bottom
two tiers and $3 for the top tier.
Andrea stated that the group was out of time and at this time, there were no other pressing topics
for discussion. These topics will be referred to the next meeting. At the next meeting, a
discussion will also take place on whether to give Legal Services the additional 25 cents they
have requested.
Thanks to all for a good meeting and great discussion. See you in March.
A motion was made by Jon Lozano to adjourn the meeting and a second was made by Mary
Edgington.
Meeting adjourned at 4:57 p.m.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Heide Port.