After eight fee requests last Monday night, CMU’s Fee Allocation Committee has announced that they will not be hearing any more requests to use money from the Student Controlled Reserve Fund, money ASG uses on behalf of the student body. Barely two full weeks into the spring semester, FAC chair Zach Beach announced the decision to ASG Wednesday.

SCRF received more money than it has in years, and with the money being spent so fast, students have to wonder, if fees be increased this year

That’s an issue the majority of students at CMU aren’t familiar with. As a junior, fees haven’t increased in the 3 years I have been here. It is certainly something that should be on the mind of all of ASG, especially with the current ASG president in her last semester at Mesa.

Certainly Diamond did not picture her last semester to be headlined by FAC putting the brakes on SCRF this early into the year, but it brings up an issue every student here should think about as well. How do we want our student government to operate at Mesa? Truly, the decision is ours as it is up to us to vote for the new president. We all want to save as much as possible when it comes to our education, but we are constantly told these are the best years of our lives, and our fees directly influence how much ASG can give back to our experience.

“ASG’s job is to use all of the student fees, and I want to see proposals to the end while Zach [Beach] is making sure clubs are on top of their proposals,” Diamond said.

The opposing (not conflicting) mindsets of Diamond and Beach serve as a template for two ways students can choose for the school. At the beginning of the school year in August, the reserve goal was $45,000. Now it is $30,000. According to Diamond, this goal is a loose one, and if ASG wants to keep the proposals and bills going through, $30,000 doesn’t necessarily have to be saved. On the other hand, ASG and FAC can cut down on spending, budget strictly and make do with the original figures.

For the remainder of this year at least, the latter should be the reality. According to Beach, the amount SCRF receives next year could be $100,000 fewer than what was received this year. If a $30,000 reserve is rolled over to next year, the operating budget would be a little more than half of what it was for this year. That issue weighed on the decision to suspend SCRF because, “we don’t want next year’s senate running out of funds halfway through the fall,” Beach said. “Its not fair to them.”

Going forward, our school is getting bigger, and along with that comes more activity from Student Life. If we want to play with the big schools, then we may have to start paying like them.

With the projections for next year’s SCRF, the answer may just become more obvious than it seems, and the final word is whom the students pick to be a part of ASG.

brjthomp@mavs.coloradomesa.edu