Athletics Fee Committee opinions split, want more transparency

By: Joshua Ceballos/Staff Writer

 

Athletics fee committee members held a preliminary vote to decide if Athletics should take a portion of Activities and Service fees, and they are split down the middle.

On Wednesday, April 24, after public hearings at both the Biscayne Bay Campus and Modesto Maidique Campus, the committee members gave their preliminary opinions on the matter with three members agreeing to the change, three disagreeing, and one abstaining from voting.

No final vote was made in part because one member, Student Government Council at MMC Comptroller Lorenzo Correa, had to leave for a final exam before the committee could fully discuss the matter. A final vote meeting is being scheduled for a later date.

Correa and his colleague, SGC-MMC Vice President Peter Hernandez, are both in favor of the transfer of 42 cents per credit hour from the A&S fee into the Athletics fee. Their counterparts in the Student Government Council at BBC, SGC-BBC President-elect Pamela Ho Fung and SGC-BBC Vice President-elect Mahalia Balfour, are against it.

Hernandez’s yes vote comes after he said during the public hearing that the Athletics Department was “strong-arming” the Student Government by asking for this money so abruptly, and lamenting the precedent of Student Government bearing the burden of other departments.

“I’m just really tired. I’ve been here four years and I’ve seen some outrageous requests [made to SGA],” said Hernandez during the hearing. “I see that this request is net neutral for students, but I think it’s tiring that it’s constantly [SGA].”

Balfour said that she would like to see money go to more pressing issues such as paying for a doctor to be on-site at BBC or paying for the shuttle between the two campuses so students don’t have to, rather than put it towards Athletics.

Members Laura Dinehart, sr. associate dean for the School of Education and Danilo Le Sante, director for assessment & strategic initiatives in Student Affairs, voted yes and no respectively.

The one voting member of the committee that refused to give a solid yes or no was Anthony DeSantis, assistant vice president for Student Affairs.

“One of the things that’s come up has been the [lack of]  transparency of this and the timeliness to the entire student body. This is finals week and people can’t attend these meetings,” said DeSantis. “The documentation that we’ve received from Athletics was very vague.”

Although representatives from Athletics such as Athletic Director Pete Garcia came to the initial committee meeting with documentation of how the Department has lost money from a bad television deal by Conference USA, there was no evidence of how Athletics will use the approximately $540,000 that it will receive from the 42 cent fee increase or how it has worked to cut costs and seek additional funding to mend the rest of its nearly $3 million deficit.

When asked for proof of what Athletics is doing to secure more money beyond the fee redistribution, Garcia said that they did not have that ready at the time of the hearing.

DeSantis said to University Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Jessell, who was present at the meeting on Wednesday and is working to secure funding from the State to facilitate the fee change, that before he votes, he would like to see a summary of how Athletics will use the money and a commitment that Activities and Service will not be affected by the change.

Also missing from the initial discussion was the inclusion of the revenues Athletics will be receiving when fully online students will begin paying an Athletics fee.

Jessell told Student Media via email that starting summer 2019, fully online students will pay the $16.10 Athletics fee ($16.52 if the fee change occurs). This was not discussed in the first committee meeting or the hearing at BBC. Committee member Balfour said she didn’t know about this change going in, and when it was disclosed at the MMC hearing, it changed her opinion because she did not realize Athletics would be receiving another large source of revenue.

The money that Athletics will receive from online students starting in the summer will be close to $2 million according to Jessell, but he said that it shouldn’t dissuade the committee from agreeing to the fee increase because they need all the money they can get.

Garcia said that because of rising travel costs they may need to cut trips for sports teams because of their financial woes and the money from the fee increase is crucial to allow student-athletes to compete across the country.

 

Photos by Joshua Ceballos/PantherNOW.