The Oracle A look behind the scenes of the ASRC committee T H U R S D AY, S E P T E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 1 7 I V O L . 5 5 N O. 0 8
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U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H F LO R I DA
By Miki Shine E D I T O R
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Mixed in with every student’s list of fees and tuition is “Flat Fee A&S Tampa.” The Activity and Service (A&S) fee – which equates to more than $17.8 million — falls under Student Government’s jurisdiction. The funds are allocated to student organizations and offices on campus. The A&S fee is paid by students each semester. The fee includes a flat fee of $7 per semester and $12.08 per credit hour. If a student takes 15 credit hours, they pay $188.2 in A&S fees. The A&S Recommendation Committee (ASRC) is fully equipped with 12 voting members. This includes six voting senators and two alternate members if one of the six isn’t able to attend a meeting. Collectively, this committee reviews budget requests for funding parts of campus such as new equipment for Campus Students pay $7 per semester and $12.08 per credit hour in A&S fees. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE Recreation, furniture in the The ASRC committee will such as the MSC and Campus department wants to go in.’ We Marshall Student Center and meet Friday and vote on a chair Recreation, are due in December get a gist of that.” events for student organizations. – who is responsible for calling for the committee to start The 2017-18 budget allocated “The goal of ASRC would be all further meetings – and a vice reviewing when winter break $11.9 million toward these larger to receive budget requests from chair. ends. departments for activities and things that are asking for A&S During the remainder of “We want them to have them renovations. This is compared funding, to determine how they the fall semester, committee to us early on, at least relatively,” to the $10.8 million that went provide activities and services members go over practice budget Hiba said. “Well before this toward these departments in last to students and to fund them requests in order to learn the deadline happens, we’ll be year’s budget. for those activities and services,” rules and processes. Additionally, meeting with the departments. According to Sen. Saeed Sinan, Sen. Aladdin Hiba, who is starting members are assigned to We’ll have people communicating who is also starting his fourth his fourth term on the committee, different departments on campus with the departments to see ‘this term on the ASRC committee, said. “With the overall goal of that request funding to serve as a is what the department wants,’ departments are coming up with making things better for our liaison between that group and ‘these are things the department more new initiatives to request USF students, adding activities, the committee. thinks maybe could be cut,’ funding for and it’s part of the adding services.” The larger budget requests, ‘these are the directions the committee’s job to determine
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which of those are worth funding. “We don’t want to overspend and over allocate things,” he said. “Basically, we look to see if the impact was the best for the student body. Should we decrease that? Should we reallocate funds to a different entity or a different program within the department?” Hiba said one of the hardest parts of dealing with the budget is having the conversations about what areas or programs need to be cut.
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