NEWS
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The University Star - Page A3
ASG pushing for better university representation, funding for programs By Nick Georgiou The University Star The Texas State University System and its universities don’t have much representation in the legislature compared to the school’s major competitors like Texas A&M, University of Texas and Texas Tech. “That’s kind of an unfortunate fact of life that far and away, more UT and A&M alumni get elected to the Senate and House of Representatives,” said William Nance, vice president of finance and support services. “I think we’re well thought of, and I think people are responsive to our needs but when push comes to shove, the big two systems (UT and A&M) and Texas Tech and U of H are better represented.” But every legislative session, the Associated Student Government tries their hand at the lobbying world by meeting with various lawmakers and their staffs in an effort to influence or solicit legislation, though ASG members prefer to label their efforts at the legislative level as student advocacy instead of lobbying. During the past couple semesters, ASG members have been meeting and building relationships with different legislators such as state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs. Rose, who is also a member of the higher education committee, said student involvement is very important for the legislative process. “I value the input from students,” Rose said. In dealing with representatives and their staffs, ASG Vice President Amanda Oskey said she has found the experience educational and described their efforts as successful. “The legislature has really opened their arms to us,” Oskey said. “They actually listened to what we have to say. Its very good and satisfying to know that they actually care.” ASG’s most notable lobbying of the legislature was in 2003, when, after a heated debate between student government members and school
administrators, the organization effectively lobbied for the university’s name change to Texas State. Two years later, legislation creating the student regent position was passed in addition to the environmental service fee. Both were products of student advocacy. Most recently, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio and former University System regent, filed a bill last month allowing components the ability to institute an intercollegiate athletic fee; a proposal ASG members had been pushing for since 2003. “The involvement, the complexity and the function of student government sort of fluctuates from era to era, to time period to time period. Since the name change, I would say we are kind of on the upswing of one of those cycles, and so we’re seeing more involvement in the past five years than we may of seen in the five years prior to that,” said ASG President Kyle Morris. The bulk of the student advocacy efforts come from ASG’s Office of Legislative Relations, which is headed up by Legislative Relations Director Sam McCabe. McCabe was not available for comment. Other bills being introduced this legislative session that are a result of ASG and other public university’s advocacy efforts include a bill that would make college textbooks tax-free. Those bills, however, have been met with resistance because tax-free textbooks means less money for the state, but Oskey remains optimistic this time around. Though she said it is too early to tell whether or not it will be a battle to get taxfree textbooks, she believes the fight is worth it. “I think we have a good shot and even if it is hard, you still need to stick it out and do it,” she said. Rose supports legislation for tax-free textbooks and believes it will be a difficult process, but he also said it was difficult to get the student regent posiSee ASG, page A9
Legislation could create new intercollegiate athletic fee By Nick Georgiou The University Star By the time the 80th Texas legislative session ends, Texas State students may have to pay a maximum of $8.75 per credit hour for a new intercollegiate athletic fee. Sen. Jeff Wentworth filed a bill last month that would grant schools within the Texas State University System the ability to institute an intercollegiate athletic fee. If the legislation is passed, which it is expected to do, the athletic fee will replace the portion of the student service fee that goes toward athletics. “What they are doing is simply separating the athletic fee from the student service fee but our pledge to the students is that there will be no net increase,” said President Denise Trauth. “It will just be in two different pots of money in the future.” Currently, 40 percent of the athletic budget comes from student service fees and 44 percent of the entire student service fee goes toward athletics, said William Nance, vice president of finance and support services. A significant portion of the athletics budget comes from the student service fee, but the department also generates its own income through ticket sales, among other things. The proposal for the fee made the rounds through the university and administration last year and was approved in November by the Texas State University System Board of Regents. “At that meeting, what happened was some of the regents began to think,” said Associated Student Government President Kyle Morris. “More importantly, other presidents of universities began to think, ‘hey that’s a really cool idea.’ So now it’s become a systemwide issue.” A month later, Wentworth, R-San Antonio, filed the bill
for this year’s legislative session. If passed in the legislature, the fee would be implemented next fall at Texas State. The student service fee would go down also by the same amount, so there will be no net increase for a student’s tuition cost. A separate athletic fee will be more transparent, predictable and easier to manage, Trauth said. “It was passed with the understanding that there are net dollars appropriated by the legislature for our university and then we would take another look at that fee increase and lower it,” Trauth said. “But that’s assuming there are new net dollars coming in from the legislature.” ASG members have been advocating in favor of the athletic fee since 2003 with the idea in mind that it could lead to Division I-A football at Texas State. Currently, football is a Division I-AA program. “Something we wanted to do to was bring our football program up to Division I(-A) status,” Morris said. “We said, ‘OK, we’ll give (athletics) a little more money. We’ll take (it) out of the student service fee but what we want to do is head in the direction of Division I(-A).’” University administrators said there is no intent to move up to Division I-A football. “Well, I know students had that conversation, but the implementation of this fee from the administrations point of view right now is not tied to Division I football,” Nance said. “There are just so many issues surrounding that.” Athletics Director Larry Teis said the fee does not have anything to do with the university moving to Division IA football in the near future. “For now it’s just makes the transition or makes it where students understand what are going into their fees,” Teis said.
Appealing to
AUSTIN
Star file photo
Proposal for increased aquifer pumping sparks dispute By Nick Georgiou The University Star From the hustle and bustle of San Antonio and Austin to the quiet, rural communities in the Hill Country, Central Texans all depend on the Edwards Aquifer. It not only provides a large amount of water to the region, but it supports an abundant ecosystem inhabited by several threatened and endangered species like San Marcos’ Texas wild-rice. But a recent proposal by state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, to increase the aquifer pumping limit from 450,000 acre-feet to 549,000 acre-feet has fueled a debate among aquifer stakeholders over the impact the increase could have on the springs which feed the region’s major rivers. “Any more pumping out of the aquifer would decrease the amounts of waters that are in our springs, which would have an impact on our beautiful river and the endangered species within that river,” said Mayor Susan Narvaiz. Tom Taggart, director of San Marcos Water and Wastewater System, said it is important to remember the reason why the Edwards Aquifer Authority, or EAA, was created by the legislature in 1993: in reaction to lawsuits under the Endangered Species Act. Glenn Longley, director of the Edwards Aquifer Research Center and aquatic biology professor, agreed. “The whole EAA was set up as a response to a federal lawsuit where the federal judge had told the state, ‘if you do not control pumping in such a manner as to protect spring
flow, the federal government will come in and do it for you,” Longley said. Roland Ruiz, EAA spokesman, said it is important to understand the context of Wentworth’s proposal. He said in the original legislation of the EAA Act, a statute spells out a pumping cap of 450,000 acre-feet. In the same statute, it also says permits had to be issued to all pumpers in the region based on their historical use. But when all the permits were added up, the total came to 549,000 acre-feet, which exceeds the cap. In order to deal with this conflict in the state law, the EAA had to use a system of junior and senior rights, Ruiz
said. Senior rights are uninterruptible and junior rights have restrictions. The purpose of the new legislation, Ruiz said, is to fix this conflict in the state law by converting all junior rights into senior rights. “So what this legislation really aims to do is to rectify that conflict in the act by basically saying, ‘OK, we have 549,000 acre-feet of permits out there, lets make that the cap,’” Ruiz said. The original act called for the cap of 450,000 acre-feet to be reduced to 400,000 acre-feet by 2008. Wentworth’s proposal would eliminate this scheduled reduction in the pumping limit. Taggart believes San Antonio
officials are using this contradiction in the law as an excuse for not finding alternative sources of water. The intent of the original legislation, he said, was to give stakeholders in the region 15 years to find alternative sources of water and reduce their dependence on the aquifer, but San Antonio still gets more than 90 percent of its water supply from the aquifer. On the same note, Longley called Wentworth’s proposal a “ploy by the entities and the San Antonio metropolitan area” to be able to pump more water from the aquifer and avoid developing alternative sources of water. See AQUIFER, page A13