The Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC), which oversees both the Student Services Fee and Recreational Facility Fee, held its first meeting of Fiscal Year 2018 (FY18) Friday.
The committee met in UC 3422A-B to elect new officers and review the its scope of work for the year.
Elections
The committee began by electing new officers. Acting Chairman and returning SFAC member Preston Templeman, also Student Government Association President, called for nominations of secretary and committee chair.
Ex-officio member Dr. Howard Patterson suggested the committee wait to elect officers until the next meeting until members got more familiar with one another, but Templeman still proceeded with elections.
It is possible Templeman did not hear Patterson’s suggestion.
The committee elected new members Klayton Kent to Chair and Tyler Rohrs to Secretary. These were the only members the committee nominated.
Student members Christian Castillo and Katie Hicken and faculty member Dr. James Newsom were absent.
Introduction for New Members
Seven of SFAC’s nine members are new to the committee this year. Roberts and Templeman are the only returning, though not non-voting members Patterson and Budget officer Eva Burnett returned also.
Experienced members brought new members up to speed on SFAC’s task and reviewed the controlling statute in Texas Education Code that defines the committee’s scope and purpose.
Members also reviewed how the schedule will play out in the coming months with student service departments approaching the committee for funds later in the year.
Tight Funding and Possible Cuts
According to Patterson, the pursuit of available funding between requesting departments will be competitive this year given a tight budget.
“So you can see that if you were to allocate every group the same amount of money that did last year, there’s only $62,000 left,” Patterson said. The Student Services Budget is approximately $2.3 million. “Most groups come back and ask for more.”
Roberts, also the Assistant Dean of The College of Business and Technology, said the committee may have to look at cuts.
“I will also add that out of that, the likelihood will be at some point the president will say we’re going to give a two percent raise pool next year. And there are a lot of salaries embedded in this [budget], as well,” he said.
“So we have to decide: do we fire some people or do we give them those raises,” he said.
“Over the years we’ve kind of gotten ourselves in a bind because we have so many salaries embedded in [the budget]. So the required raises typically means that we have to cut services somewhere else,” he said.
“So that means that the talent event is not going to happen or somewhere we have to make a cut to somewhere to something,” Roberts said.
Fiscal Year 2017 Budget
However, members seemed unaware that UT Tyler President Michael Tidwell composed a budget for Student Services in FY17 that was strikingly different than the one SFAC recommended.
Roberts said the president accepted all of SFAC’s recommendations (though he did not) and other members did not correct Roberts. Therefore, it appeared all were under the same impression.
Paperless
SFAC will also receive electronic tablets in keeping with the University’s effort to go paperless to save money. Previous committees had large three-ring binders with budget papers and appropriation requests.
The committee will also share a digital workspace through Microsoft Office OneNote, SFAC administrator Mychelle Hughes said.
Deadline
Vice President of Business Affairs William O’Donnell who attended the meeting said The Business Affairs Office asks that SFAC deliver its recommendations by May 1, 2018.
Public Comments
There were no public comments. SFAC meetings are open the public and individuals may sign-up at the beginning of the meeting to address the committee for two minutes.
The committee’s next meeting is Dec. 1 in UC 3140.
Committee
According to state statute, SFAC serves to advise the university president on how to budget Student Services money that the University collects each year through the mandatory Student Service Fee.
The money must go towards “student services”, which the statute defines as ”activities which are separate and apart from the regularly scheduled academic functions of the institution and directly involve or benefit students.”
SFAC also oversees the Recreational Facility Fee, according to statute.
Twitter: @jhescock
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