A bill that would raise the ASUNM fee paid by undergraduate students from $14 to $20, and would increase funding available for student groups by $200,000 cleared its first hurdle Wednesday.
The Associated Students of UNM Steering and Rules Committee passed the constitutional amendment, which also lowers the amount allocated to the Student Publications Board from 12 percent to 8 percent. The board publishes the Daily Lobo, Conceptions Southwest and Best Student Essays.
Sen. Grant Nichols, who helped Sens. Jason Shaffer and Evan Kist write the bill, said the reduction in funding percentage to student publications would not actually reduce the dollar amount, which is about $47,000 per year, because of the overall increase in student government income.
Students voted against a bill last spring that would have eliminated $38,000 of student fee funding to the Daily Lobo but would have left a small percentage for remaining publications.
Nichols assured the committee that the bill was not intended to reduce student publications' funding.
"This is all one bill - if one part doesn't pass, none of it passes," he said.
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ASUNM Vice President Steve Aguilar said the bill was in response to ever-increasing budget requests from student groups that the Finance Committee is unable to cover. The $14 fee has not increased since 1977, he said. Part time students are now charged a prorated amount of $1 per credit hour. If this bill becomes law, that would increase to $1.50.
Based on 2000-2001 enrollment of 23,741 full-time and 46,860 part-time students, ASUNM's current funding of $378,861 would increase to $576,020.
"This money that we're raising still won't be enough," Aguilar said. "Technically, we should be at $25 to $30."
He added that New Mexico State University charges $35 per student to support the undergraduate student government.
If the bill is approved by the Senate the next week, it then goes to University Counsel before going to student vote during the general election in November. Shaffer said senators will need to campaign heavily to help students understand why the increase is necessary.
During the same meeting, the committee killed an amendment to the ASUNM Lawbook that would have required Senate approval for executive agencies to retain a surplus beyond one fiscal year. Student groups have to apply to the Senate to keep their surplus funds at the end of the year, but executive agencies had to seek Finance Committee approval. Executive agencies include the Homecoming Committee, Student Special Events and the Arts and Crafts Studio.
The bill received much attention, going through several amendments before ultimately failing. Several argued that the bill would balance the process of keeping budget surpluses for all groups, whether they were student groups or part of ASUNM.
"We're not saying you can't have your money, we're just saying it has to go through the same process as everyone else," said Sen. Tim Serna, the author of the bill.
Others argued, however, that it would only add unnecessary red tape to the process, especially because the groups would have a hard time compiling their budget surpluses by the stipulated date.
"We're not the federal government - we don't have the type of economists to project this out," Attorney General Josh Aragon said.
The committee passed several additional bills, including one that allowed ASUNM to assign other tasks to the Attorney General besides the ones laid out in the Constitution, and another giving the ASUNM Student Court appellate jurisdiction over the decisions of the Attorney General and the Elections Commission. Bills approved by committees Wednesday will be up for Senate review at its next meeting.
