Wednesday, January 26, 2009
The University Daily Kansan
Section A • Page 3
Health fees to jump in Fall 2002
Bv Warisa Chulindra
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
An increase in student health fees planned for Fall 2001 will not take place until Fall 2002.
The increase will be significant, though the exact amount has not yet been determined.
Watkins administrative staff and the Student Advisory Health Board will consider cost savings, revenues and student input, said Carol Seager, director at Watkins Memorial Health Center.
Watkins officials plan to have the increase request ready for the Campus Fee Review Committee to
examine early next year. Until then, Watkins' expenses will continue to grow and exceed its annual revenue, requiring a larger increase for 2002 than what would have been requested for 2001.
Significant increases every six to 10 years are not uncommon, said David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs.
In 1990, the fee increased $12 from $57.00 to $69.50 per semester. In 1991 it increased $1.50 to $71. It remained at that rate until 1996 when a $15 fee was added to pay for a building addition to Watkins. The student health fee stands at $88 per semester.
Randall Rock, chief of staff at
Watkins, said the $15 fee was set to expire in 2002 or 2003, when the addition was paid off.
Seager said that after the fee increased in the early 1990s, annual expenditures had been reduced and the excess money sat in a cash reserve. But four years ago, with operation expenses increasing, Watkins started running a deficit, she said.
Watkins has been using excess money from the early 1980s to operate. The fee increase is necessary to operate past 2001, Seager said.
Korb Maxwell, student body president, said he preferred smaller increases every few years instead of a large increase.
"I'm more in favor of a $3 to $5 increase so that students now aren't paying for the health care of students of 2010," he said.
Jason Williams/KANSAN
Fees may not fund non-revenue sports
Continued from page 1A
Frederick said the program had $871,000 budgeted for the fiscal year 2000.
Linda Mullens, assistant vice chancellor of student affairs, said the amount individual students paid broke down to $20 per semester for students taking more than six hours and $10 per semester during the summer session.
Maxwell said he thought it was wrong to have student fee money going to the Athletic Corporation to support non-revenue sports.
"I believe in Title IX and women's sports," Maxwell said. "But I think that fees set up a class structure. You have revenue sports, and you have the others. It's like two tiers."
Unlike fee money that supports the University's libraries, unions and safety lighting around campus.
Maxwell said fees paid to the Athletics Corporation do not provide a service for students.
Kristi Kiyabu, Honolulu, Hawai,
senior, has a different way of
looking at things. Kiyabu is a member
of the women's volleyball team.
"I guess I just come from a different place," Klyabu said. "Volleyball does bring students and the community together. The athletic corporation does a good job
to support Title IX. I would support whatever they would do to make the program bigger."
Frederick said he understood the cost of student fees because the corporation paid fees for more than half of the University's student athletes due to grants and aid.
"We're like a parent with 350 kids," Frederick said. "We're not a service like the library or unions, but we're paying a lot of fees."
Hearing on Watkins trust postponed until April
By Jim O'Malley
Elizabeth Miller Watkins donated Watkins and Miller scholarship halls to the Board of Regents in 1926 and 1937. Some residents are challenging the way Watkins' will is being handled. Contributed photo
Kansan staff writer
Residents and alumnae of Watkins Scholarship Hall will have to wait until April to tell a judge their concerns about management of the trust that supports Watkins and Miller Scholarship halls.
At a hearing yesterday in Douglas County District Court, Judge Jack Murphy gave the residents and alumnae 10 days to put their objections in writing. He scheduled a hearing for April 14.
Residents and alumnae have been questioning management of the trust since 1984.
Current and former residents want to make sure the University is following the wishes of Elizabeth Miller Watkins, who donated the two halls to the Board of Regents in 1926 and 1937, said Watkins alumna Gayle Barry Matchett.
The deeds that transferred the property say the halls are for the use of deserving, self-supporting girls who want to attend the University. The deeds also limit the rent to amounts self-supporting students can pay and require that any surplus be used for scholarships for self-supporting girls
scholarships to help support the students.
In her will, Watkins set up a $250,000
fund.
trust to maintain and operate Miller and Watkins perpetually. The trust has grown to approximately $3 million and is now managed by the Bank of America.
If the University were found to have violated the terms of the deeds, the property would revert to Watkins' heirs, according to the deeds.
Nicole Skalla, Longmont, Colo., senior, was one of 12 current Watkins residents who went to yesterday's hearing. Skalla said the group had questions because, although the trust fund was growing, rent for residents was rising. The group also was concerned because the trust was earning a low rate of return, she said.
Leslie Mettenburg, Princeton senior, also attended the hearing. She said another concern the group had was that National Merit Scholars without financial need were being given places in the two halls.
This was contrary to Watkins' wishes, she said, because the halls were designed to benefit self-supporting students. She said the residents and alumnae already were looking for a local attorney to represent them in the case.
University representatives say it has done nothing wrong.
"The University is confident that the trust has been managed appropriately and in accordance with Mrs. Watkins' wishes," said Lynn Bretz, interim director of University relations.
Matchett and Skalla said they didn't want conflict but instead answers to
questions after an impartial review of the records by the judge.
"We don't want to point fingers until our questions are answered," Skalla said. "We just want the Emily Miller Watters will be followed."
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