Members of the Warren College Student Council have asked students to vote on a four-dollar-per-quarter activity fee referendum between April 26 and April 30 that would more than triple the amount of money available to the council. If the referendum passes, Earl Warren College would become the fifth college to enact a student fee.
“Warren is really suffering,” said sophomore Brandon Blades, a special assistant to the WCSC parliamentarian and in charge of managing the referendum. “We need money so that people who have ideas have resources to implement them.”
The college council’s budget, which is tied with Sixth College as the lowest on campus even though Warren has almost seven times more students, would suffer deep program cuts in the fall of 2004 as a result of the university’s funding shortages, according to WCSC President Tim Alexander. Currently, Warren college and Sixth College are the only two colleges whose budgets do not include an activity fee.
“There are going to be budget cuts all over the place at Warren next year,” Alexander said.
According to Alexander, in past years, Warren college’s office of the provost supplemented the council’s Associated Students allocation with proceeds from vending machine operations, though cuts in student affairs will cause the office to spend the money on college administration in the next academic year.
In addition, the provost’s office will have to cut its funding for the $9,000-per-year Readership Program, which provides newspapers for the college’s students. Residential advisers would also see their benefits cut, Alexander said.
Without the fee, the council would be unable to take over the programs, said Erik Ward, the WCSC president-elect and current Warren freshman senator.
In addition, WCSC members said the money would be needed to provide funding for the college’s Commuter and Transfer Board, created by the constitution Warren students passed in campuswide elections.
In order to publicize the fee referendum, USA Today has given the council almost $2,000 in money and prizes to support its “get-out-and-vote” effort. Though the paper is among those receiving money under the readership program, councilmembers said they had struck no deals or promises that the program would continue if the referendum passes.
“[USA Today] doesn’t have any guarantees from us,” Alexander said. “They know that this won’t guarantee anything; it’s up to council to fund based on the merits of the request. But they know that if the referendum doesn’t pass, there is just no way they will have any funding next year.”
Under the deal, the newspaper will provide the college with posters promoting the referendum vote that are free of corporate logos and do not express any position on the issue. In addition, it has given the council $600 for newspaper advertising, several sets of tickets to Padres and Chargers games to use as prizes for a raffle, and has promised to pay for a pizza party for the first floor in the college’s residential halls in which students vote, Alexander said.
Though the council voted unanimously to put the activity fee on the referendum, a handful of students, including Warren senior senator Jennifer Klage, were against using the newspaper’s money.
“I sort of feel it puts us in this very awkward situation,” Klage said. “I know that they don’t expect anything from us, but I just didn’t think it was the right thing to do. It sort of feels to me that if the student referendum does pass, we have an obligation to help them in the future.”
However, the paper’s National Educational Manager Doug Fraser said USA Today had no financial incentive and was interested only in promoting political awareness among students, like the national America’s Youth Forum that it hosted across the country.
“We actually love to work with anything that encourages civil engagement,” Fraser said, explaining that the paper often helps schools on an individual basis. “We wish they all wanted our assistance.”
In order to pass, the referendum needs to receive a simple majority of support among voters. However, for the vote to count, the college must also have a turnout of 15 percent, meaning at least 700 students.
Warren college had the lowest turnout in this month’s campuswide A.S. runoff election, with only 11.4 percent of students voting.
“[Meeting the turnout level] is the hardest thing that we’re projecting,” Blades said, explaining that he thought voters would support the fee.
In order to raise participation, the college will use paper ballots, available at the Warren and Price Center shuttle stops, instead of electronic voting on StudentLink. All who cast ballots will be entered in the raffle for the donated sports tickets.
Klage, who said she neither supports the referendum nor opposes it, said she was hesitant about asking students to pay more fees at the same time as higher tuition costs and less financial aid. However, she voted to put the referendum on the ballot.
“I do think that students should have a choice,” Klage said. “If they do feel that council needs the money, and it’s their money, they should decide.”
Though he uses the college’s Readership Program every day and would like to see more activities, Warren sophomore Robert Routley said he will vote against the referendum.
“I pay the school enough money as it is,” Routley said.
Warren freshman Neil Robertson, who said he tentatively supports the fee, said he would rather see the money raised through more fiscal responsibility among WCSC members. The council started off the 2003-04 academic year in debt.
If students vote in favor of the activity fee, it must still receive approval from university administrators, including new Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, Blades said. Should that happen, it would be the second-lowest fee assessed on campus, behind only Thurgood Marshall College, which charges students two dollars per quarter.