IUSA to support student voice on fee

IU Student Association officials said the group will support a new transportation fee only if students are largely behind the measure. But IUSA President Tyson Chastain said if students are mostly against a new fee, his group will oppose it.\n"When the fee is proposed by the transportation department, it will then be put forward to IUSA's congress," Chastain said. "We will then submit the measure to the student review board, which is comprised of seven students who are not affiliated with any campus group and who represent the interests of the students, to then adopt the measure."\nThe Bloomington Faculty Council announced the transportation fee recommendation on Tuesday, proposing to increase the fee by $30 a year to allow students to ride all campus buses and city transit buses with just their student ID. Students are already paying a $60 transportation fee each year to use the park-and-ride shuttle service from the stadium to the Indiana Memorial Union, the midnight shuttle and Bloomington Transit by showing their student ID card.\nSenior Scott Norman, IUSA vice president, said he wants students to know that IUSA is not going to support any fee that they do not want.\n"We want fees that are favored by students," Norman said. "We don't want any more fees that students don't want."\nChastain said last year's $30 athletic fee increase used up the 4 percent tuition allocation increase made by the governor's office.\n"Last year we saw the $30 athletic fee increase," Chastain said. "We are going to get student support if there is going to be an increase in the transportation fee."\nIUSA proposed a universal bus fee in 1997 that included improvements to the existing bus system and the city transit system. Norman said the recommended fee increase is another step toward universal usage of all buses on campus and in the city.\n"The universal fee was accepted by the administration four to five years ago," Norman said. "That fee included free busing, improvements to service and to the buses. We currently do not have enough resources to handle the present system."\nProfessor Patricia Foster, member of the BFC, said she believes the proposed transportation fee will be received positively, if it goes through the necessary procedures required for passage.\n"The recommended transportation fee is supported by both faculty and students," Foster said. "The athletic fee implemented last year was neither supported by faculty or student. The only way the transportation fee will not go through (is) if students and student organizations decide to not back it."\n-- Contact staff writer Eric Tash at etash@indiana.edu.