In the final deliberations, the Student Fee Recommendation Committee met for the final meeting on Feb. 17, where the committee decided upon funding allocations for the upcoming academic year.
The committee spent most of its final meeting carefully debating alterations to their plans for a mutual benefit to the university departments. This debate focused particularly on the few groups who asked for the largest increases in their budgets.
The groups at the center of the funding-increase conversation were the Athletics Department and the Stromberg Complex, Weber State University’s recreation facilities.
While the athletics department had asked for a larger sum of money, conversations remained around the Stromberg Complex’s presentation and how their new management would be dispersing the funds. The specific requested amounts took the back burner as the discussion focused mainly on both groups’ experience with cost and revenue.
“I think we should give Athletics their funding,” said committee member Noor Mouhammad. “They know what they’re using that money for.”
Other members of the committee saw the need the Stromberg Complex has for more funding and empathized with them.
Committee member Julie Jiyeon Song argued that Athletics has a possibility of changing fund amounts based on the success of the teams.
“To be honest, the expenditure of their travel will fluctuate,” Song said. “It’s not always a fixed cost.”
Previous to the committee’s final meeting, the Stromberg Complex has said that they are financially “in the red” and are in need of funding to increase payment for employees and improve their management.
“To me, it sounds like they need an increase to fix the needs they have already,” said Cody Brown, committee member. “It sounds like they are still operating at a deficit until we can adjust their base funds.”
As the committee deliberated, polarizing opinions emerged concerning where the money should be placed. The discussion changed to how money could be broken up by type of funding.
With different opinions going back and forth, there was an understanding of the difference between base funding and one-time funding. Base funding, to which most departments proposed an increase, is how much money that group is allocated at the beginning of each year to use as that department sees fit. One-time funding is money given one time for that group to use in a specific way.
After discussion of allocation options, several members made calculations of how to split a lump of money between Athletics and the Stromberg Complex so that there could be a benefit to both groups.
They divided that amount of money, and the committee then voted on a plan to give the two groups money for both base funding and one-time funding that would help them further the improvements they are looking to make for their departments. The members then voted to finalize all other recommendations for student fees and closed their last meeting.
The committee will be contacting each of the representatives who presented to let the respective groups know of the final plan for fund allocation.
