Salt Lake Community College currently has the third lowest student fees in Utah. The Student Fees board succeeded in lowering student fees by $1.00 for 2010-2011 students.
SLCC Vice President Deneece Huftalin said, “They looked at anywhere they could see either carry forward dollars or ways that folks maybe could continue to do what they need to do and still give up a little of their line items so that the other folks that were in the red could continue to survive.”
Money was taken from the Building Bond, Fine Arts, Globe Student Media, Technology, and UTA transportation.
“The students believed that they could take dollars away from those line items,” Huftalin explained.
The departments are now expected to rethink how they do things.
“We’re going to have to renegotiate with the UTA contract, fine arts and lectures are going to have to do things a little differently, technology fee are going to have to look at their budget,” said Huftalin.
Departments are making due with carry forward dollars (left over money to be used next year) and are finding ways to more effectively present their case in the future.
The Fine Arts department lost 25 percent of their student fee dollars.
“Those cultural program dollars are critically important and we need to protect them,” said Richard Scott, chair of the arts cultural events committee. “I do think we need to be able to present that case more effectively with quantitative backup and we don’t have that, but we’re accumulating that now.”
These departments that lost parts of their funding are concerned about how it will affect the students. The fine arts department will have to start changing how many programs they offer or how much they spend on programs.
“I think that it would start to diminish more and more what we’re able to present,” said Scott, “everything from cultural event kind of programming and special events for student life and leadership to all the various fine arts programs that occur.”
While some departments may be forced to rethink how they run their programs, other departments are now able to help students in ways that were previously unavailable.
“Funds were reallocated to Health and Wellness services, [and] a recycling campaign on campus to strengthen recycling,” said Huftalin.
Half of the funds given to Globe Student Media (Globe Newspaper, Radio, and Broadcast) were reallocated to the Institutional Advancement for Media. This was to ensure student participation.
According to Joy Tlou, the director of public relations, the Institutional Advancement Media can now provide internships for students perusing a career in production, film, and television.
“There was a new proposed fee for students of applied technology,” said Huftalin.
The School of Applied Technology is now receiving funds from student fee dollars. According to Joy Tlou, these are students that are studying very specific fields. “This money goes straight to that group of students to help serve them better.”