In a move to establish greater student influence over the
allocation of funds derived from student fees, the A.S. Council voted
unanimously last week to pass a constitutional amendment that places new, more
extensive regulations on all future campus-based student fee referenda.

The amendment, which institutes a set of standards by which
to draft the text of any fee-related referendum, was designed in part to ensure
that students voting on such measures are provided with all information
relevant to the implementation of any proposed fee changes.

Chair of the Registration Fee Advisory Committee Garo
Bournoutian, who authored the amendment’s original draft, said that with these
changes, students will now have the chance to review multiple, explicitly
stated facets of a referendum included directly on the ballot and thus better comprehend
the measures proposed before casting their vote.

“This amendment kind of aims to get people to really
understand what’s being included in a ballot measure and what they’re actually
getting for the number of dollars that they’re paying,” Bournoutian said.

Additionally, one of the amendment’s primary functions is to
ensure that student governing bodies, including the A.S. Council, are able to
exercise extensive oversight of the funds derived from activity fees. Under the
terms of the amendment, applicable student governing bodies now have the
authority to conduct an annual review to approve the operating budgets related
to these fees.

Bournoutian said that this feature of the amendment will
ensure that activity fee usage promptly react to the fluctuating demands of the
student body.

“What these rules indicate now is that these activity fees
are still going to be up for a yearly budget review, so we can see that the
student interests and what the students voted for are still being maintained,”
Bournoutian said. “Maybe the students voted for something, and then 10 years
from now when we look at the activity fee [the administration] is using it for
something that is not in the spirit of what students voted on. The student
government should have the ability to say ‘Hey, we’re not approving your yearly
budget for this year because it doesn’t mirror what students want.’”

The amendment also requires that all campus facilities
funded by student facility fees be attended to by an advisory board whose
charter conforms to several institutional conditions. Among these is the
requirement that the advisory board of any facility which draws over 50 percent
of its funding from student fees be chaired by a student representative.

A.S. President Marco Murillo said that this aspect of the
amendment safeguards students against excessive administrative influence over
facilities funded primarily by student fees. He referred to recent controversy
that arose over the funding of the new RIMAC Annex as an example of the type of
situation that the amendment will help to avoid.

“With the RIMAC Annex, on a lot of decisions that were made,
students weren’t really consulted and a lot of things that [the administration]
went ahead with on the RIMAC Annex weren’t things that were included in the
original referendum of the RIMAC facility,” Murillo said. “By having the
advisory boards we’re making sure that the money is directly used for the
facility and the students are consulted about any changes or any other steps
that might be needed.”

In order for the amendment to be ratified, four out of the
six college councils must approve the change. So far, only the Revelle College
Council has brought the amendment up for consideration, approving it in a
unanimous vote yesterday. The other college councils are expected to vote on
the constitutional revision at later dates.