IFC open hearings this week and next

Beginning tonight, students will have the opportunity to voice their opinions about how much they want to pay in incidental fees.At 6 p.m. in the Oregon Room of the Werner University Center (WUC), the first of two open hearings will take place, the latter set for Monday, Feb. 13, at 6:30 p.m.The Incidental Fee Committee (IFC), which is comprised of seven Western students, will listen as students voice their concerns and wishes in regards to the IFC funds they are committed to pay each term while attending the university.All IFC monies go to fund student activity groups, including athletics, student media, Associated Students of Western Oregon University (ASWOU), creative arts and the WUC.Each year, the groups and IFC draft budgets with compromises to inflation and other factors taken into consideration. IFC then puts out a preliminary decision worksheet of the budgets, complete with the proposed student IFC fund increase or decrease.Currently, Western students pay $172 per term in IFC fees. The committee's proposed budget currently consists of a $2 increase for students each term.Whether the increase will happen or not is entirely up to the students, according to Thomas Bell, Senate Chairman of the Liberal Arts Caucus and Senate Budgetary Chair."We want students to come speak out," he said.Jamison Hemmert, the IFC chair, resonates. "Students need to come (to the open hearings)," he said."Without us hearing what the students want, the best decision is not going to be made to represent everyone," he said.Hemmert said that the preliminary budget, with the proposed $2 increase, is not official; "it's not set in stone at all," he said. "Things will change according to the student voices."After open hearings occur, IFC takes students opinions into account and then arrives at another budget. That budget, whether it has changed or not from the preliminary decision worksheet, will go to Senate, where Senate has 72 hours to accept or deny. IFC can send the budget back to Senate one more time before the groups have to go into joint resolution.ASWOU President Gerry Blakney, working with his staff, shaved $11,000 from the ASWOU budget in an effort to prevent an IFC increase for students. The idea should have worked if all student organizations had stayed at a relatively similar budget as last year.The idea faltered, according to Hemmert, from the budget needs of the WUC. "In the past they have had money from year to year, and their request has been minimal," he said. But, with minimum wage changes and student salaries, the university center asked for more money than previously.Under the preliminary budget, the WUC will receive an increase of nearly $68,000; they, however, asked for $94,000.Other organizations that do not meet their wants under the preliminary budget include creative arts, athletics, student media, Student Leadership Activities and extraordinary travel.Bell wants to see enough of an IFC increase to fund all the group's requests. That would be an increase of $9 each term, students paying a total of $181 per term."Personally, I know of all the programs," he said, and "I personally advocate for the $9."Blakney, on the other hand, urges students to look closely at the budgets and the necessary monies it takes to operate student groups."Go out and do the research," he said. In the case of the WUC's request, he said, "we get told that we need $96,000 to run, but if you actually look at the budget, there is room to cut around."Most students don't know the intricacies of the budget, according to Blakney, and are simply being told what to do. "Students are being treated like pawns and animals," he said.Regardless, the decisions will be altered by students who attend and speak at open hearings this week and next. "If students go for the $2 (increase)," Bell said, "then that's what we'll go with."We will represent the students."