Another fee may be on the horizon for Cal State University students.
Come fall, students may be asked to pay a $2 voluntary statewide Student Involvement and Representation Fee per semester, if the CSU Board of Trustees votes to approve it in May.
Information about the $2 fee was presented to the Board in March by John Haberstroh, Associated Students Inc. president, and Sarah Couch, California State Student Association president. The fee, which will go toward the CSSA, is optional.
According to the Board’s meeting agenda, all CSU students, whether undergraduate, graduate or credential, will be assessed the fee “with a fully disclosed option to not pay if the student does not support the fee charge.”
Couch said the fee is vital to the steadiness and potential expansion of CSSA, an organization that represents all students in the CSU system at the local, state and national levels.
“We advocate on behalf of more than 446,000 students and yet have one of the smallest budgets for a statewide student organization in the entire nation,” Couch said. “It is imperative that we have a stable funding stream that can allow the organization to better implement our current programs and ensure that we will be able to support students for years to come.”
Couch said CSSA has a current annual budget of about $650,000. The organization is funded by two main sources: money allocated from the CSU Chancellor’s Office and a fraction of ASI fees collected from each campus’ student government, according to the agenda.
The amount collected from each campus varies because it is determined by the size of the student body. Each campus pays 65 cents per student.
Currently, Cal State Long Beach’s ASI pays the CSSA $22,492 annually. If the fee is passed, that number will increase by $1,988, Haberstroh said in March 2013.
Although CSSA effectively operates its programs already in place, it does not have the resources to create new ones, Couch said. The proposed fee would expand CSSA’s budget to allow more students to participate in advocacy and governance programs. According to the Long Beach Press-Telegram, it would generate an extra $900,000 per semester.
“For each of those programs — sustainability initiatives, advocating to legislators, serving on a CSU System-wide Committee, etc. — we have a finite amount of funds that allows a finite amount of student participation,” Couch said. “A $2 fee, administered twice a year, is a modest increase for the organization.”
The fee’s revenue would also garner funds for CSSA professional and support staff and allow CSSA to further develop student policy recommendations, according to the agenda.
Couch said the fee’s amount was decided upon when CSSA prepared various budget scenarios that would increase student involvement within the organization. CSSA decided $2 would achieve that. The fee will be collected by the chancellor and held for the use by the CSSA, according to the agenda.
CSU Spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp said there has been a good ongoing discussion about the fee and its benefits between the Board and the CSSA presenters.
“I do know that the CSSA did put together a very impactful presentation and did a very good job presenting their reasons as to why [the SIRF] would make sense,” Uhlenkamp said.
He said that the Chancellor’s Office does not have a stance on the proposed fee yet and instead is waiting to see whether the Board approves the fee or not, he said.
“It’s something that will be brought back to the Board of Trustees in May,” Uhlenkamp said.