Student fees to be allocated by committee

Saturday was a long day for the members of the Committee for Fee Review. While students and faculty members were at the IU vs. Purdue basketball game -- or watching it on TV -- the members of this committee were fielding requests from six of the 13 campus organizations that receive money from student fees.\nThe committee, which is chaired by IU Student Association President Alex Shortle and Graduate and Professional Student Organization Moderator Paul Rohwer, spent seven and a half hours in the Distinguished Alumni Room in the Indiana Memorial Union, while representatives from the different campus \norganizations made their pleas for funding.\nOn Saturday, the committee met with representatives from IUSTV, IU Transportation, GPSO, Union Board, WIUS and Student Legal Services.\nCommittee members said their job is to allocate the money based on which groups best serve students.\n"It's students taxing themselves for student services," Shortle said. "Students are very rational."\nOnce the committee hears presentations from all the organizations, it will meet to decide where to allocate money. Committee Member Phil Johnson said the committee makes decisions based on how each organization serves students and how many students they serve. \nOnce it makes its decisions, Associate Dean of Students Damon Sims reviews the \nrecommendations before sending them to Dean of Students Richard McKaig on March 1.\nThe recommendations then make their way up the ladder to the chancellor, then the president and, finally, the board of trustees. With the new shifts of power, the path of the recommendations might change. How that ladder will change to reflect recent administration changes is unclear.\nThe IU board of trustees makes the final decision on where to allocate money.\nCommittee Member John Palmer said the trustees usually don't change the final budget.\n"It sounds kind of bureaucratic but usually it doesn't get changed at all," he said.\nRohwer said it's the committee's job to help the groups identify where they can make budget cuts and "reasonably cut them down on their request."\nThe Committee for Fee Review is comprised of nine undergraduate and graduate students (including Shortle and Rohwer) in diverse degree paths.\nSaturday the committee will meet to hear presentations from the remaining seven campus groups.\nAs of this weekend, the committee did not know where the money will go.\n"It's important to understand we're not going to have results yet," Palmer said. "We can't isolate out one group (without hearing the rest)."\nAs for each organization's request, the University only has so much money to give.\n"Everybody's shooting for blue skies," Shortle said, "but they only get one leg, and possibly a crutch. We won't make you crawl"