After overturning six fees recommendations, a University administrator created a panel to reform the perennially divisive Student Services Fees Committee process.

Jerry Rinehart, the University’s vice provost for student affairs, proposed the task force, which will include representatives from Student Senate committees, campus cultural centers and this year’s fees committee. Undergraduate and graduate student governments will also participate.

Rinehart said the task force will begin meeting within the next two weeks and will submit recommendations by June 15. He said that he hopes to implement any proposed changes in September.

Controversial process

In present form, a five-member Administrative Units Committee allocates funding to University groups with complex budgets, while a larger Student Organizations Committee grants funds to student groups.

The process is student-driven, but Rinehart intervened, reversing six committee decisions – all but one on the administrative side.

With Rinehart’s changes, students will pay $281.89 per semester next year, $5 more than this year’s fees.

Last year, Rinehart restored funding for The Wake student magazine and reversed a cut to the department of recreational sports.

Student group recommendations have sparked the most controversy in past years, but this year, steep recommended cuts to Radio K, Summer Cultural Programs, the Minnesota Programs and Activities Council, and The Minnesota Daily prompted frustration about the administrative committee’s decisions.

Rinehart has said reversing fees committee decisions is “dangerous.” But he said intervention was essential because this year’s fees committee wasn’t representative of the student body.

“I’m sort of a safety valve Ö to make sure we don’t jeopardize a major piece of our living and learning environment,” Rinehart said.

With the cut, he said, there would have been a dramatic loss of programming.

“It would have hurt our ability to retain students, our ability to attract students, our ability to connect students to the University,” Rinehart said.

But Mark Annis, an Administrative Units Committee member, said Rinehart “took the student voice out of the process.”

“I think there were good reasons for the decisions (the committee) made,” he said.

Calls for change

Mark LaCroix, Radio K’s program director, said three administrative fees committee members ignored the facts and formed a conservative voting bloc – Annis, Aaron B. Solem and Brian Edstrom – to slash fees.

“They used that overarching goal, and they applied it to these groups in an unfair way,” he said.

LaCroix said he was surprised by the committee’s politicized tone. The fees review committee should look at ways “to remove that from the process so people of all ideologies would be able to work together,” he said.

Edstrom said that he made the cuts on the administrative side partly to retaliate against the student groups fees committee. Edstrom is president of Students for Family Values, which received no funding from the student groups committee. That recommendation was the only student-group cut overturned by Rinehart.

“It was like, OK, I’ll go along with the other cuts that were proposed Ö I just felt good cutting, just because they cut (Students for Family Values) down to zero,” he said. “I’m not ashamed of that.

“(The fees selectors) just throw all the conservatives on the admin committee and think we’re not going to cause trouble. And they get mad at us when we cut fees.”

Edstrom said the cuts were also aimed at trimming the fat from some University budgets.

He said the current fees system is unconstitutional because it lacks “viewpoint neutrality,” which was called for in a U.S. Supreme Court decision and is required by University policy.

According to fees committee guidelines, “the committee may not consider the viewpoint of requesting groups in making funding decisions.”

But Tom Meyer, Campus Republicans president, said that fees committee adviser Aaron Asmundson tossed out his group’s application before the committee could look at it.

Asmundson said he dismissed the fees request because Campus Republicans is a partisan organization.

“Their application didn’t fit the minimum criteria for applying,” he said.

Meyer, who ran for Minnesota Student Association president on a fees-reform platform, said, “A partisan group is nothing more than another viewpoint.”

“That’s a fees committee decision to make, not an Aaron Asmundson decision to make,” Meyer said.

Solem said the committee should set specific standards groups have to meet to get funding.

“A lack of criteria allows viewpoint to seep into the process,” he said.

Rinehart said a separate problem is a lack of interest in participating on the fees committee.

There were nearly as many fees positions available as applicants, said department of forest resources graduate student Nadine Lehrer, one of four selectors who chose the fees committee members.

“We made pretty good choices, given the pool we had, given the constraints we had,” she said. “I felt comfortable with our choices.”

Open agenda

The fees review committee could propose many changes, because the Board of Regents allows a great deal of flexibility in the fees process, Rinehart said.

Suggested changes include changing the size or structure of the committee and altering the process for choosing fees committee members. Having the fees committee distribute a predetermined amount of money is another suggested model. Right now, the committee can allocate as much money as it wants.

Kristen Denzer, the University Senate Student Services Fee Subcommittee chairwoman, said she likes the idea of giving a stipend to fees committee members.

“People would take (the process) a lot more seriously,” she said.

Rinehart said he hopes the changes eliminate the need for administrative intervention.

“My observation is we need to find a better way to do it,” he said. “I’m just not sure what that is yet.”

Steve Wang, the Student Organizations Committee chairman, said the committee will bring together a bunch of “mini-experts,” who will focus on fixing the recurring problems.

“I can’t promise you that we will solve every single issue, but I can promise we will address every issue,” Wang said.

Past reform

Since 1869, when the Board of Regents first established University fees – a $1 fee “to defray incidental expenses” – the fees process has been occasionally reviewed.

Two task forces, one in 1987 and another in the early ’90s, “put down on paper” many of the procedures the fees committee currently uses, said former student government adviser June Nobbe, who supervised the process in some capacity for approximately 20 years.

“I do feel we have moved in a direction where we have a lot of things in place that help ensure viewpoint neutrality,” said Nobbe, who is now the University’s director of student development and leadership programs.

But reviewing the process again will improve it, she said.

“It’s essential,” Nobbe said. “It needs to happen.”

The most recent review, in 2001, established the two separate fees committees.

With each review, it’s been continually reaffirmed that students should lead the process, Nobbe said.

Some skeptical

But some students said they question how effective the proposed committee will be.

Edstrom said, “I don’t fault Jerry for trying, but quite frankly, I don’t see this committee being able to do anything about the fees process.”

Annis said the effort is a lost cause.

“It doesn’t matter how you set it up, (the fees committee process) is always in favor of increases in spending,” he said. “I don’t know how you fix that.”

Rinehart said he won’t rest until effective changes are implemented.

“I’m committed to carrying through,” he said.