BY RAEGAN NEUFELD
At Thursday’s meeting, the Fort Hays Student Government Association continued to work towards helping Health and Wellness Services deal with a budget deficit to ensure the organization’s vital services to students can continue.
Two weeks ago, senators adopted a bill allowing for an emergency fee review for Health and Wellness Services, due to a $150,000 budget deficit. Several circumstances factored into this deficit, including their move to the Fischli-Wills Center for Student Success, the purchase of new equipment and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. A bill was needed to conduct the emergency fee review because the organization is currently up for fee reviews every other year and were not scheduled for this year.
Legislative Affairs Director Ella Burrows and the Legislative and Political Action Committee introduced a bill on Thursday that would transfer $136,340.06 from the old Safe Ride account to Health and Wellness Services.
“We did this instead of a fee increase to keep our student fees flat,” Burrows said. “The fees sitting in the Safe Ride account have already been paid and are not going to anything since Safe Ride no longer exists.”
The bill will be up for a second reading at next week’s meeting for senators to vote on it.
Other fee reviews were discussed on Thursday, with senators voting to adopt several resolutions that either increased, decreased or did not change the student fees for several organizations.
Money received from student fees
- Civic Engagement – $0.01 decrease per credit hour ($0.51)
- Educational Opportunity Fund – $0.03 decrease per credit hour ($0.60)
- Student Government Association – $0.02 decrease per credit hour ($0.51)
- Student Engagement – $0.02 decrease per credit hour ($1.92)
- Tiger Media Network – $0.05 increase per credit hour ($2.19)
- Athletic Bands – $0.03 increase per credit hour ($0.86)
- Campus Intramurals – no change
- Tiger Debs – no change
- Wellness Center – no change
- Memorial Union – no change
Melissa Dixon from the Hays Convention and Visitors Bureau was present at the meeting as a guest speaker. She spoke about what the CVB does and how important visitors are to Hays. According to Dixon, the economic impact of overnight guests for 2022 was $40 million.
“For that reason, the city decided we need a full time staff to take care of our visitors because they do put a lot back into our economy,” she said.
More information about the CVB and upcoming events in Hays can be found on their website.
The next SGA meeting is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on March 2 in the Black and Gold Room.