Service fee money freed by athletic referendum

Approximately $1,064,810 was made available in Student Service Fees (SSF) due to cuts in the amount of money the Athletics Department received in the 2011 fiscal year, which began at the beginning of this semester, according to documents obtained from the office of Vice President of Business and Administration Bob Brown.

Associate Vice President and Director of Financial Services Alicia Currin is also a faculty representative in the SSF Committee, which is mostly comprised of students who decide how much money campus organizations receive from Student Services. She said the committee allocated money with the athletic fee in mind.

"When that fee was passed, the students were promised there would be more money put into this pool," Currin said. "So, we pulled about $800 thousand out of athletics, so that was $800 thousand more that the students had. Plus, there was some one-time money of around $129 thousand."

The Athletic Department saw a complete cut of money they received from SSF for scholarships, down from $805 thousand in the 2010 fiscal year, and an $82,813 decrease in the amount of operational money. Now, the athletics department only receives $502,705 from SSF for operational purposes.

The decrease comes after the Athletics Department actually requested more money from SSF, more than $1.6 million for scholarships and more than $1.1 million for operations. Athletic Director Carlton Cooper said the requests were made because there was no way of telling how much money the department would receive from the athletic fee.

"You don't know exactly what you're getting, it's a guesstimate of what you're going to get from the athletic fee," Cooper said. "At that time [when the referendum passed], you still cannot budget on something you don't know you'll have. So, during that time the Student Service Fee Committee met in the spring, and they met after the athletic fee had passed. When they meet, we still had an opportunity, just like any other entity on campus, to ask for funds, so that's what we did."

Cooper said the athletic fee was to help the department become fully funded, in addition to making more SSF funds available.

"The purpose of it was to get an athletic fee so we could get fully funded," he said. "By getting the support from the students, it would free up money to help other areas on campus for students, and that's what I think it's doing."

He also said it was normal for the Athletics Department to request as much as it did.

"We've pretty much asked somewhere in the same neighborhood every year I've been here," he said. "I wanted students and the people in the committee to really know what it costs to run athletics. We didn't get most of it, we didn't get it in the athletic fee either, but you have to ask."

The Athletics Department is not in any financial danger after not receiving the desired funds, according to Cooper. However, he did say the department would be asking for more money from SSF in the future.

"Basically, we were asking for what we felt we needed to fully fund a proper Division II program," he said. ""I wouldn't be a very good athletic director if there was an opportunity for money and I didn't ask for it. If there's an opportunity for money out there, and it's good, I'm going to ask for it."

Dean of Campus Life and Student Development and Chairman of the SSF Committee Brian Nichols would not elaborate on why the committee decreased the amount the Athletics Department received, but he did say what the committee was looking to do.

"One of the things I've asked the students to do as chair of the committee has been to look at those things that are going to have a direct impact on the lives of students," Nichols said. "I've set that same tone every year. As you review a proposal, while they all have merit, you have to ask will students see a benefit from the money they're paying back into the services they are receiving."

Among the main beneficiaries of the extra money available was the Morris Recreation Center, which received a $30,892 increase. Director of Campus Recreation Jorge Juarez said the majority of that increase went to the hiring of one person.

"This person is in charge of keeping up all the maintenance, grass fields, turf, the picnic area," Juarez said. "We have the ropes course, they have to maintain that. They probably have about of 170 acres of land they need to cover."

The Children's Learning Center also received an increase, up $67,600 from last year. Nichols said there was a valid reason behind this increase.

"The majority of users of the Children's Learning Center are students, so parents who are students here," Nichols said. "It makes it possible for many of them to go to the university. Without that childcare, a university degree wouldn't be within their reach. They're a budget that has started the year for a very long time where we were funding them at a level below which they could break even at the end of the year. They started, this year for the first time, at a level where we funded a budget that they will be able to finish the year zero."

Nichols said this was a milestone year for SSF, and allows for more growth at A&M-Commerce.

"What this year did was to really put us over the top," he said. "Now we have the money to create the campus life that students have asked us to create. You have enrollment going up, you have facilities going up, and now you have the financial resources to compliment the first two. That's what we needed to have happen."