With decreased enrollment leading to a decrease in income from student fees, the Student Fee Review Committee is in a unique position as the university’s only student-run budget recommendation panel.
Organizations that rely on student fees for their budget, such as the Missouri Students Association, the Graduate Professional Council and MizzouRec, are directly impacted by changes in enrollment. MSA, for example, is completely funded by student fees. The organization’s overall budget is equal to their fee, $22.05, multiplied by the number of undergraduate students.
“We always have to make tough calls,” SFRC vice chairman Jack Blevins said. “If we see areas of the budget that are overspending or can make some cutbacks, then we kind of have to make that judgment.”
According to its [website](https://sfrc.missouri.edu/?page_id=2), SFRC is the designated liaison between students and administrators and is responsible for proposing student fees to upper-level administrators.
SFRC reviews presentations from organizations that receive student fee revenue and members score their proposals based on various criteria, Blevins said. The body then aggregates the scores of members to send to Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Cathy Scroggs.
“We’ll take notes during each meeting and then a little bit later, after we’ve reviewed all the presentations, we’ll essentially fill out a scorecard,” he said. “So each student [in the committee] will get a different scorecard and they can rate how much they’d like to see changes in different areas.”
While these organizations offer their preferred increases and cutbacks in funding, members of SFRC have the final say on what is sent to administrative officials.
“In terms of filling out the actual scorecard, it’s completely based on student preferences … in terms of their budget and what will most benefit the general student body,” Blevins said.
The overall student fee is limited by the Consumer Price Index, which will cap fee increases by about 1 percent, or $4.15, for the 2017 fiscal year, according to SFRC’s website. However, individual organizations may request fee changes that are above or below CPI.
The committee meets weekly and is led by a chairperson, who is selected from a pool of applicants by the previous chairperson and Alysha O’Neil, the staff adviser. The newly chosen chair is then able to appoint the remaining 10 committee members from the general student body.
The MSA Budget chair and GPC treasurer, currently Blevins and Alex Howe, respectively, both have standing positions on SFRC as vice chairpeople. The chairperson and vice chairs select committee members based on applications.
“The current chairman and the two vice chairmen kind of deliberate on who they think would be the best fit in the committee,” Blevins said. “That’s based on resumes that are submitted and answers to some of the questions gauging their interest. Basically, we’ll mark down what we like about them in terms of what their interest was.”
Committee membership was not always open to all students. According to a 2012 Maneater article, [MSA bylaws once stated](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/2/17/changes-be-made-student-fee-review-committee/) “five senators shall be appointed to the Student Fee Review Committee with the advice of the chair.” However, membership rules changed after SFRC violated MSA bylaws by sending fee recommendations to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs without submitting any legislation to MSA Senate.
Despite this change, SFRC meetings are normally not open to students, SRFC chairman Bill Vega said in an email.
_Edited by Emily Gallion | egallion@themaneater.com_
