SA begins blanket tax reform

By Seth Brown     1/28/10 6:00pm

Earlier this month, the Student Association created a new committee on blanket tax reform to correct the perceived lack of oversight in tax proposals. The need for oversight of the unregulated system was highlighted by repeated confusion at election time. For example, until last year, University Blue, a former student-run literary publication that had been defunct for several years, continued to receive $1 from each undergraduate student's tuition. Of the six blanket tax proposals to reach last year's ballot, the only one to pass was an amendment to remove UBlue's blanket tax.

Attempts by the Rice Program Council and KTRU to increase their respective blanket taxes, as well as efforts from R2 and Open to begin receiving blanket tax money by becoming subsidiary organizations of the Student Association, failed.

Blanket taxes, paid by every undergraduate on top of tuition, typically go to campus organizations that benefit the student body as a whole, with nine current subsidiary organizations, including the Rice Thresher. Currently, each student pays a total of $68 per year in blanket taxes, and any changes in the paid amount require the approval of two-thirds of the voters in the spring general election.

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The primary goal of the new committee will be to work with organizations interested in increasing their blanket tax funding or becoming subsidiary organizations in order to identify the necessity of the funds. Tiffany Wu, SA Treasurer, said the committee will then present each individual case to the SA, which will vote on whether to include each proposal in the general election.

"In the constitution, it is written that all requests [for blanket tax monies] must be substantiated," Wu, a Brown College junior said. "I thought it might help to have a committee that could examine each request in detail."

The committee, which consists of Wu, SA President Patrick McAnaney and three other students, gave organizations until last Friday to submit request forms. These forms require any organization attempting to either become a subsidiary or to change the amount of money received through blanket taxes to explain why the funds are necessary, what other attempts to increase funding have been made and how the blanket tax would contribute to the organization's long-term sustainability. It also recommends the inclusion of both current and historical proposed budgets, historical expenditures and a letter of support from a dean or faculty member.

Wu said the requested information is necessary in order to properly evaluate requests. However, she said the committee is only meant as a first screening process.

"There isn't enough time [at SA meetings] to go into each request," Wu said. "We will go through and evaluate each proposal and then present both sides to the senate."

Although the new committee will not deal with the problem of ensuring the funds are properly managed, McAnaney, a Brown College senior, will be working with the SA to eliminate sources of waste in order to test how other organizations' expenditures might be monitored.

"There are definitely very clear examples of wasteful spending on the part of the SA senate, and we aren't the one exception," McAnaney said. "We have to think critically about what we are doing with the money."

McAnaney declined to comment further on the sources of SA waste.

KTRU President Rachel Orosco and R2 President Jennifer Luo said that in order to receive the necessary amount of votes in the future to increase their blanket taxes, their organizations will need to better educate the student body on how blanket taxes work. While Orosco, a Jones College senior, said KTRU intends to try again this year to increase their funding, Luo, a Sid Richardson College senior, said it was unlikely that R2 would try again to become a subsidiary organization again in this year's general election.

"Last year, people thought we were adding on to the blanket tax," Luo said of last year's proposal to turn R2 into a subsidiary organization. Since UBlue was the predecessor to R2, Luo said she thought it was reasonable for R2 to receive the funds previously collected by UBlue.

"When UBlue went defunct, it made sense to have the money transferred to R2," she said.

Both R2 and KTRU have found other sources of funding, though Orosco and Luo said their organizations would be able to do more with increased blanket tax monies. Orosco said she feels optimistic about the new requirements in applying for these funds, though she said this would only increase KTRU's odds of getting votes from students who were already interested in the election process.

"I think the attitude of the student body will have to change - most kids don't understand what they're voting on," Orosco said. "The SA needs to better educate the whole undergraduate population on all of the issues.

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