Wireless Internet drives student fee increases

Despite Gov. Martin O'Malley's promise to freeze tuition, student fee increases proposed to the RHA last night by department leaders could send students digging deeper into their pocketbooks when they go to pay their bills next fall.

Representatives from the departments of Resident Life, Resident Facilities and Dining Services approached the group with a proposal to raise room and board by $292 next year to a total cost of $8,714.

The 3.47 percent increase largely reflects standard cost increases these departments face every year: higher energy costs, higher cost of health insurance benefits for employees, even the increased cost of the furniture that stocks dorm rooms.

But a $36,720 plan to upgrade all dorm data jacks to provide wireless Internet in all campus housing was one major factor driving the fee increase beyond year-to-year expectations, Director of Resident Life Deb Grandner said. Once finished, the upgrade will allow the Office of Information Technology to begin converting dorms for wireless capabilities, a process officials hope will begin later this semester and continue for the next 14 months.

"The use of computers, wireless really is the future," Grandner said at the meeting. "Our resident halls should be using state-of-the-art technology within the next 14 months."

Associate Director for Dining Services Joe Mullineaux also added that a state-mandated raise for all university employees to the living wage - an adjusted minimum wage based on an area's standard of living that would raise employees pay from $8.59 an hour to $9.67 - was one of the biggest factors driving up the student fees this year. The raise will cost Dining Services and Resident Life $374,787 combined.

Still, most of these unforeseen costs were offset by Resident Life's decision to reduce the number of active phone jacks in dorm rooms from two to one, saving the department more than $500,000.

The proposed fee increase of $292 this year was in line with typical increases students have faced in past years. Last year, room and board fees went up $347, and the year before, the costs increased by $284. Room and board fees have increased every year for the past 20 years.

Residence Hall Association President Mike LaBattaglia said that he plans to approve the proposal in a letter to the Student Fee Review Board, an assembly of students and administrators that will put the final stamp on the budgets in two weeks before the plans are submitted to university President Dan Mote and finally the Board of Regents. LaBattaglia said that because most of the added costs were mandated by the state or the university, the fee increases were unavoidable.

"It's a very no-frills budget," he said. "There's no frivolous spending. It's mostly just generally upkeep things. This seems like it's passable."

This year marks the first year ever a member of the RHA has been represented on the committee, and LaBattaglia said that with the added representation, he hopes to advocate further against the university's policy of cost containment, even if that advocacy might not reverse the process by which the university collects a yearly cut of profits earned by Resident Life, Resident Facilities, Dining Services and other self-sustained departments throughout the school.

While RHA senators generally approved of the proposed budgets, they grilled the department heads on how they were using their savings funds. Resident Life and Resident Facilities have a plant fund of $21 million dollars. Dining Services has $13 million.

Director of Dining Services Pat Higgins discussed a savings plan that is collecting money toward renovations for the South Campus Dining Hall that were recently pushed back from 2009 until 2017.

Grandner said the money would gradually be spent on facilities renovations, and despite calls for a new dorm, she said that without permission from the Board of Regents there was no room for such a massive-scale project in their current budget.

Although typically discussed at the RHA's annual student fee meeting with the departmental directors, Department of Transportation Services' budget was absent from the gathering because the meeting was scheduled for a week that Director David Allen was out of town. After multiple increases in the cost of parking fees and tickets over the past few years, there are no indications as to whether these fees will increase again next year.

Contact reporter Ben Slivnick at slivnickdbk@gmail.com.