Associated Students Inc. will face a $963,000 budget shortfall over the next five years if the proposed $16 ASI fee increase does not pass during next week’s special election.
ASI Executive Director Richard Haller said the fee needs to be increased for a number of reasons but, most importantly, to accommodate increasing minimum wage and maintain ASI-owned buildings, such as the Isabel Patterson Child Development Center.
“Those are things we can no longer avoid,” Haller said. “We have to address them as soon as possible.”
ASI Vice President Jonathon Bolin agreed that deferred facility maintenance is a big priority.
“We can’t let our child development center be unsafe for our children, so we have to make those changes,” Bolin said. “And we’re going to have to cut in certain areas to have that money if the fee doesn’t pass.”
Haller said the most obvious areas where funding would be cut include the Soroptomist House, the ASI Recycling Center, ASI scholarships and money awarded to student organizations.
If the fee increase passes, however, some funding generated by the fee would go toward necessary items, and a significant portion would go toward other initiatives. Haller said students would like to see the additional funding directed toward four main areas: study abroad grants, research grants, a 24-hour study center and money for major events.
“We haven’t had a major concert or special guest lecturer on this campus for quite some time,” Haller said. “We need a stable source of funding to be able to do that.”
Bolin said ASI is trying to organize a concert this semester, but the entertainment budget is limited to $10,000 to $20,000 for a headliner, which is not enough for a big-name performer in the music industry.
Other Cal State University campuses, such as Cal State Northridge and Cal State Fullerton, host at least one major event per semester, Bolin said.
“CSUF had Pitbull last year, and the year before that they had a concert with LMFAO, and the year before that I think they had Drake,” Bolin said. “There [are] huge concerts that go on through the CSU, and they are only open to their students … We’d like to put something like that on for our students.”
Students currently pay $44 in ASI fees per semester. Under the proposed $16 increase, students would pay $60 per semester, beginning in the fall.
The ASI fee was last increased in fall 2000, and since then, ASI operating expenses have increased by more than 40 percent, according to the fee’s informational pamphlet.
Haller said that although an increase to the ASI fee has been talked about over the years, it wasn’t placed on the ballot because tuition kept increasing and students would have likely voted against it.
“We finally have come to a point where tuition is stabilized,” he said. “We have a commitment from the governor’s office that tuition won’t go up over the next couple of years … so the timing is now.”
ASI student fees generate roughly $3 million in funding toward the student government’s annual operating budget. If passed, the fee increase would generate an additional $1.2 million annually, which would be roughly a 30 percent increase, Haller said.
The ASI Senate initially voted to approve the fee increase in spring 2013, but after review from the Student Fee Advisory Committee, ASI executives were informed that any increase in student fees would have to be voted on and approved by the student body.
However, the referendum for the fee increase will not be placed on the general election ballot in March. Instead, the fee increase will be voted on in a Cal State Long Beach special election via email on Feb. 26 and 27, Bolin said.
Bolin said ASI chose to hold a special election for the fee increase to allow for additional time to plan the ASI operating budget for 2014-15.
“Putting together a budget with [an additional] $1.2 million in three weeks would be a little bit of a rushed budget,” Bolin said. “But if it passes by the end of February, that would give us another month to work on it.”
Haller also said that if the fee increase was placed on the general election ballot, ASI candidates might politicize the fee increase by making it part of their platform during campaign season.
A simple majority vote is necessary for the fee’s passage, which means more than 50 percent of students who vote in the special election would need to vote yes.
“We need this fee to pass,” Bolin said. “If it doesn’t pass, there’s truly going to be some cuts that I think students will most likely feel.”