March 9, 1995
Associated Students will collect about $1.8 million in voluntary student fees this year -- "voluntary" because it is students who set AS fee levels.
But not all students may be aware that voter referendums that raise fee levels to help fund specified programs, such as student financial aid and the AS Children's Center, are not legally binding on AS.
According to executive orders issued by California State University Chancellor Barry Munitz, AS is not required to spend fee increases on the programs named in the student referendums.
As a result, this year AS will take more than half a million dollars in fee increases approved by students in 1992 for financial aid, and divert it to its general fund.
In the fall of 1992, AS gathered 3,500 student signatures calling for a voter referendum to increase Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) fees from $10 per semester to $35.
The IRA fee increase was to be used in support of intercollegiate athletics at SFSU, and to free up $270,000 of the IRA budget for other programs -- such as La Raza, Performing Arts and the Golden Gater.
AS then tacked on to the referendum a request that students approve an increase in AS fees of $24, from $18 to $42 a semester.
The referendum, dubbed Proposition "Save," linked the IRA and AS fee increases, requiring students to either approve or reject both with a single vote.
On Nov. 5 and Nov. 10 of 1992, AS took out full page ads in the Golden Gater, at a cost of $1,864.80. According to the ads -- and the terms of the referendum itself -- half of the $24 increase would be used to provide financial aid, short term loans and emergency grants to students. Specifically, $10 of the increase in AS fees would be used to provide financial aid for 5,000 students.
In special elections held Nov. 10 and 11, students voted 1,333 to 942 to raise IRA and AS fees. The vote, in which fewer than ten percent of the school's 26,500 students participated, raised annual student fees by $78. Yearly, AS fees went from $36 to $84 -- a 233 percent increase.
The next fall, the fee increase went into effect, and, as promised, AS put the $10 into financial aid. According to Ed Apodaca of Enrollment Services, altogether the fees brought about $500,000 into financial aid in fall 1993 and spring 1994.
After following the stipulations of the referendum for one year, AS voted to take the money away from financial aid, instead "donating" one dollar of each student's fee increase to financial aid. Financial aid got about $25,000 last term, said Apodaca -- one-tenth the amount students approved in the referendum. Apodaca said the money is being diverted to fund the Children's Center.
Two letters from CSU Chancellor Barry Munitz to President Corrigan clearly state that AS can take money approved by student referendums and spend it on any approved activities it deems worthwhile, without regard to the intentions of the referendums.
Executive Order No. 597, dated March 3, 1993, was issued by Munitz to authorize the fee hikes mandated by the 1992 student referendum. A cover letter concerning the order addressed to President Corrigan stated that:
"The Student Body Association Fee increase was approved by student referendum to support the operation of the Children's Center, to augment the general fund of the Associated Students, Inc. and to provide student loans and grants. However, revenues from the Student Body Association Fee may be used for any purpose approved by the Trustees and are subject to regular allocation and appropriation procedures applicable to the Student Body Association."
A year earlier, Munitz used nearly identical language in a letter to Corrigan accompanying Executive Order 591. Dated April 2, 1992, that order approved a $3-a-semester fee increase earmarked for the Children's Center building fund by a 1991 student referendum.
So far, AS has appropriated all of the fees designated for the Children's Center by voter referendums, said Children's Center Director Sarah Johnson. But working on what will be a 20-year project to finance the center with a new group of people at AS every year has not been easy.
"I didn't expect to have to fight my case with a new board of directors every year, and I resent it," she said of the nonbinding nature of the referendums.