Proposal for Student Life Fee Increase

[Alekhya Reddy]

[image: Inline image 5]

Hello Undergraduates,

I hope your weekend has been starting off well and that all friends and
family are safe in light of recent tragedies.

I am writing to you today to discuss a proposed increase to the Student
Life Fee by $11 over the course of 3 years, with an increase of $4 for the
next fiscal year (see reasoning and details below). As Treasurer of the UA
this year, it has been difficult to balance both finite budgetary
constraints and student group requests for money. We understand that our
allocations to student groups serve as core funding for the amazing events
and activities that make MIT the place we all call home. We have listened
to your disappointment in funding shortages and want to take action to
ensure that this problem is permanently fixed going forward.

Due to the debt at the beginning of the year, we have regrettably had to
scale back our allocations tremendously. The charts below highlight the
rise in Finboard expenses that the UA has incurred since the 2011 fiscal
year as well as the relative stability of our other expenses. It is clear
that Finboard funding this year has been cut significantly due to the
depletion of our reserves and debt from last year.


[image: Inline image 1]



[image: Inline image 2]


In addition to our strained Finboard funding, we have also seen a steady
increase in the number of ASA Finboard funded groups, as charted below.
There has been on average 16 new funded student groups per year. This
increase is absolutely critical for maintaining MIT's unique culture, but
also strains funding and allocations even further.


[image: Inline image 3]


With the pressures of more groups needing more funding, our UA income has
remained relatively stagnant, with no increases in the UA portion of the
Student Life Fee since 2009 (other portions of the SLF go towards DAPER,
MIT Medical, GSC, Dean for Student Life, and Dean for Graduate Education).
In short, our spending has exceeded our income, leading us to look into
raising sources of funding.

[image: Inline image 4]


We believe that FY14 was a sustainable expenditure for both the UA and
student groups. We would need an extra $110,000 to reach the FY14 level of
funding from our current projected FY16 funding. Therefore, in light of our
stagnant income and heightened demand for our Finboard pool of money, we
have proposed an increase of the Student Life Fee, now at $308, of $11 over
3 years. The first and second year, the fee will increase by $4 and the
third year, the fee will increase by $3 for a total of $11. A new proposal
will be submitted every year to review the need for an increase on a yearly
basis. We estimate 10,000 students (both graduate and undergraduate
students) to be paying the fee, bringing us to our target of an additional
$110,000 in funding. By the end of this SLF increase schedule, we will be
able to fund groups at the sustainable FY14 level. For those three years of
increases, we are looking into setting up temporary funding that will reach
our FY14 goal until the fee is increased by the total $11.

The proposal has been reviewed by Dean Colombo on Thursday, and we will be
presenting the proposal at a Council meeting on Monday at 8pm in Room
W20-400 (fourth floor of the student center, room 400) so that we can meet
the MIT budgeting deadline of November 17th. Everyone is welcome to attend
the Council meeting.

I encourage you to email me with any questions, concerns, or suggestions
you may have about this increase or to schedule a time to meet with me. I
hope that with this SLF increase, MIT students groups will have more fiscal
flexibility in the future.

Best,


Alekhya Reddy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology c/o 2016
Sloan School of Management | Department of Mathematics
alekhya at mit.edu
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