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ASI Senate discusses raising student fee

The Associated Students Inc. Senate is considering authoring a resolution aiming to increase the ASI fee by $16, after its last resolution was rejected in the spring.

At last week’s ASI Senate meeting, ASI Executive Director Richard Haller presented the budget outlook for 2014-15 as a “time for tough decisions.”

If the potential resolution passes, it would place a referendum on the spring 2014 ASI ballot and allow students to vote on the fee.

The raised fee would tackle the approximately $750,000 in deferred facility maintenance that ASI is responsible for, such as the Soroptimist House, the Isabel Patterson Child Development Center and the ASI Recycling Center, Haller said.

ASI Vice President Jonathon Bolin said the ASI Board of Control passed the same resolution in April. The Board of Control then sent the resolution to the Student Fee Advisory Committee, Bolin said.

The Student Fee Advisory Committee then approved the fee increase, but the increase was ultimately rejected by the CSU Chancellor’s Office because it wasn’t voted on by the student body.

“This is the same resolution from last year,” Bolin said. “This time we are making sure it passes the correct way.”

Haller said the funds that would be generated by the increase are needed to replace outdated property and equipment, implement the recently approved minimum wage increase and provide competitive wages for student employees, among other things.

“There’s only two ways of dealing with the budget solution,” Haller said. “You either have to reduce your expenses or increase your revenue.”

According to Haller, the ASI fund has operated “in the black” for four of the last five years, meaning the multi-million dollar organization’s expenses have not exceeded its revenue.

Students currently pay $44 per semester in ASI fees, according to the CSULB website. With the increase, the fee would total $60 per semester.

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