The Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC) met last Friday to deliberate on 68 funding requests for Fiscal Year 2020 from dozens of UTRGV programs and departments.
Submitted funding requests total $13,748,826.96.
The Rider requested the projected revenue total for next academic year but as of press time Friday, Emilia Treviño, financial manager for the Office of Student Success and SFAC co-chair, said the committee has not received the amount.
Programs funded through the student services fee are based on recommendations of the SFAC.
The SFAC makes recommendations on the allocations of projected fees to UTRGV President Guy Bailey. Projected fees are based on enrollment.
“I just want them to know that the committee in its entirety, including the students, staff and faculty worked really hard to make this as fair as possible and to have the interest of the students above anything else,” Treviño said.
Seventy-seven requests were submitted, compared with 57 for FY 2019.
Funding requests are divided into two sections: ongoing requests and one-time requests. Ongoing are proposals that must be funded with incoming revenue so that they are sustained by the student services fee budget. For Fiscal Year 2020, a total of $13,588,174.96 was solicited for ongoing requests.
A total of $160,652 was solicited for one-time requests.
For next fiscal year, Athletics has requested $8,734,530. This fiscal year, SFAC recommended $7,546,602.71.
Leadership & Mentoring requested $668,006.88 for FY 2020; Chess, $441,778; Student Activities, $305,963.11; and Student Media, $305,442.64.
Besides Treviño, there are five students and four university representatives on the committee:
–Mario A. Flores, student representative
–Chelsea Peterson, student representative
–Oscar Trujillo, student representative
–Alejandro Saldivar, student representative
–Diana Lara, student representative
–Karla Loya, associate vice president for Financial Services
–Marcela De Léon, director of Budget and Operations for Research, Graduate Studies & New Program Development
–Douglas Stoves, senior associate dean of Students for Student Rights and Responsibilities
–Hilda Silva, an associate professor in the Organization and School Leadership program
–Luzelma G. Canales, senior associate vice president for Student Success and committee co-chair
–Frances Rivera, associate director of Planning Analysis and ex officio
Saldivar, an accounting senior and Student Government Association president, has served two years as a student representative in the SFAC committee. Saldivar said this year’s committee has been efficient in reviewing the funding requests.
“This year’s committee, I think, since a lot of the faculty members are returning, even the chair of the committee was on the committee last year, but I think, like, we learned a lot of stuff that we could’ve done better that we didn’t do last year,” he said.
Treviño said UTRGV President Guy Bailey will respond to the recommendations by early May or June.
“I feel we had a lot more new requests and they were more from the colleges within themselves,” she said. “They were to offer students, like, additional opportunities to attend conferences, to display research or to perform, you know, depending on their major. That, I think, everybody in the committee appreciated that there’s a lot more thoughtfulness to request for the students, to provide the students with opportunities that they wouldn’t normally get and that will help them once they graduate.”
The Texas Education Code, Section 54.503, requires that the SFAC “conduct meetings at which a quorum is present in a manner that is open to the public and in accordance with procedures prescribed by the president of the institution.”
The code also requires that recommendations made by a student fee advisory committee must be recorded and made public.
