UW-Eau Claire students may see tuition bills jump $13 next year if Student Senate approves next year’s Organized Activities Budget on Monday.

Eau Claire expects lower enrollment numbers next year, which are driving a 3.05 percent increase in segregated fees  — a charge on top of tuition — to avoid big cuts to student organizations like athletics and art programs.

Any higher and Senate would have to justify the increase to the UW System Board of Regents, who hold the power to rework the budget if it disagrees with Senate’s seg fee level Tyler Will, Senate Finance Commission director, said.

“We did the best we could with declining enrollment,” Will said.

Of the 28 programs funded by seg fees, 11 will get less money next year, 11 will get more and six will get the same amount if Senate approves the budget without changes.

Student org funding depends on full-time enrollment numbers. If fewer students enroll in classes full-time, fewer students pay seg fees and less money flows into the organized activity budget.

“I would like to see enrollment go up so we don’t have to continue on this path of having to draw back funding,” Will said.

Before finance drafts org funding, university budget officer Mark Reeves estimates how many students will enroll in classes full-time, and how much money seg fees can bring in.

FTE peaked in 2011 at about 9,700 students but has been declining since. Next year, Reeves estimates about 9,200 students will enroll full-time at Eau Claire — or about 140 fewer students than this year.

Then and now

Back in 2008, Student Senate held nearly $1 million in its carryover account, which goes toward funding unexpected expenses throughout the year.

But Senate learned the state of Wisconsin could snatch unused student money if the carryover got too high, Will said. So it started spooning that extra cash into student organizations and other projects to scare away state budget hawks.

Reeves said carryover funds also allowed Senate to spend leftover money instead of hiking up student fees.

“There has been a number of efforts to keep the seg fee level increase as little as possible and use up some of those carryover balances,” Reeves said.

Last year though, Senate increased funding for only one organization — the Athletics Department — after ‘08 surplus funds dwindled. Senate’s reserve account spending whittled the carryover from about $140,000 in the 2012 budget year to about $9,000 now.

But since budget year 2011, while Senate was cutting down its carryover account, student organizations have been saving more.

Between fiscal year 2012 and 2013, the total amount in all student organization carryovers jumped from about $450,000 to about $750,000.

That means next year, Senate will pull savings from student organizations to help rebuild the Senate carryover, Will said.

Carryovers

Will said the finance commission set a target amount for carryover holdings: about $30,000.

But to get there, finance will use .75 percent of all seg fees to help rebuild its carryover.

“We would like to build (the carryover) up, not to where it was, but enough to maintain some kind of security,” Will said.

Finance also cut Counseling Services about 10 percent and the Children’s Nature Academy about 45 percent because both programs held hefty rainy day funds, Will said.

These programs will use savings to cover reduced student money next year.

“It wasn’t that they were saying the services weren’t necessary,” Lynn Wilson, Counseling Services director, said. “They are very supportive of counseling services …”

Last year counseling won a special allocation from a chancellor’s fund to pay for two more staff positions this year and next year.

Wilson said her office is busy, even with extra staff, and is trying to secure funding for those positions by the time the chancellor’s fund runs out.

That’s part of the reason counseling has been building a carryover — in case it had to use its savings to keep people on the payroll, she said.

Wilson said she understands why finance wants to give them less money next year but hopes future senators won’t hold funding at that
level.

“It’s important for the new senators to understand that because the Senate only gave us that amount … that doesn’t mean we don’t need the other amount that has been allocated in the past,” Wilson said. “Your savings account only lasts so long.”