The SGA discussed plans for Fiscal Year 2020’s Non-Mandatory Fees and has sworn in five new members.
Letty Benavides, UTRGV’s associate vice president for Campus Auxiliary Services, explained several new fee changes for a new evening parking permit, meal plan changes and housing rates.
Since there is currently no evening parking permit, students who need to park for courses after 4 p.m. have to purchase a regular permit.
“We are proposing a $40 per year [evening permit],” Benavides said. “You buy the permit during the fall semester. It’s good for the entire year. So, it expires at the end of the of the summer semester. So, you buy during the spring it’s $30, summer [I] $20 and so forth. Other than that, there’s no other permit fee changes that we are proposing for Fiscal Year 2020.”
The cost for the summer II evening parking permit will be $10.
She said with the evening permit, eligibility to park in Zone 1 and 2 would begin at 4 p.m.
“We did review the class schedules, and we noticed there’s a peak of classes that start about 4:30 p.m. with another peak at 4:40 p.m., depending on the day of the week,” Benavides said. “So, we figure giving, well we’ll start the eligibility to park in Zone 1 or 2 at 4 p.m., giving you at least 30 minutes to get to class.”
She said after 5 p.m., Zone 1 and 2 permit holders can park in Zone 1, 2 or 3.
“So, if you have a 7 p.m. class, you can park at [Zones] 3, 2 or 1 with $40,” Benavides said.
Department of Housing and Residence Life will also increase their rate by 1 percent.
“This is basically to cover the increase in cost of staffing, maintenance and things like that,” she said. “Like continuing to do the facility enhancements.”
Benavides also said meal plan rates will increase by 2.3 percent.
“It’s not just about increasing the rates, right? So, we started looking at what can we do to try to make these meal plans more attractive, more of value for our students,” she said.
Benavides said Campus Auxiliary Services’ Executive Director Robert Cantu negotiated with Sodexo. Unspent dining dollars from the fall semester will now rollover into the spring semester.
She said the department heard students did not like the weekly meal plans. Cantu also negotiated with Sodexo to open block plans, so there is not a loss of meals. The block plan would allow for a certain set amount of meals that expire at the end of the semester, instead of weekly.
In other business, five candidates were sworn in.
Yuvia Cruz, an electrical engineering sophomore, was sworn in as senator for the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Paolo Ferrel, a political science senior, was sworn in as senator for the College of Liberal Arts.
Samuel Adarugo, a mechanical engineering graduate student, was sworn in as senator for the Graduate College.
Jose Perez, an accounting junior, was sworn in as executive aid for SGA funds.
Lauren Brough, a computer science junior, was sworn in as a campus representative, which is similar to a senator but will not have voting rights during meetings.
The 2019-2020 Student Government Association Election candidate applications were also discussed. SGA’s candidate application deadline is Feb. 15.
For more information about SGA, visit facebook.com/utrgvsga/.
