By Travis Pillow
Non-functioning duct smoke detectors in the Reitz, which the SG executive branch estimates will cost approximately $150,000.
During the Fall of 2007, the business-friendly environmentalist Hunter Lovins cut herself off in the middle of a presentation she was giving in the Reitz Union Grand Ballroom and asked the audience to be quiet for a minute.
The room fell silent, save for the moan of a straining air conditioner.
“Hear that?” she asked. “That’s the sound of wasted energy.”
At the time, the building was almost exactly 40 years old. Eddie Daniels, the Union’s executive director, says that as additions were made to the building, its infrastructure was not upgraded accordingly, in part because of the way projects get funded. Funding for something like a new ballroom usually does not include money to expand electrical, air conditioning or other systems to accommodate the increased use, he said.
As a result, Daniels explained during a presentation before the Student Senate in November, the power and air-handling systems are over capacity. Between asbestos, dead smoke detectors and other problems, the building requires some $42.5 million in repairs and upgrades, according to an estimate by an engineering firm. A pipe burst in the basement last semester, ruining computers and carpets in the basement and reminding Union officials that not making improvements can also come at a price.
There are several ways to pay for these repairs. One option is money from the Capital Improvements Trust Fund, which is drawn from student activity fees and is already earmarked for non-academic construction projects. It only disburses every three years, so we couldn’t get money for the repairs until the 2011-12 school year.
Some of the repairs are allegedly too urgent for that, so the Union and Student Government have proposed a fee increase for students. President Bernie Machen did not want to raise fees without the approval of the student body, so the proposal will come before us as a referendum during Student Government elections on Feb. 23 and 24.
Asbestos in the Reitz Union piping.
Perhaps the most vocal opponents to the plan had been Graduate Assistants United, who argued they could not afford what amounted to a tax on their already low wages to pay for a building they seldom use. As The Fine Print headed to press, Student Body President Jordan Johnson published an editorial in The Alligator in which he wrote, much to his credit, that he would work to exempt graduate assistants from any fee increase. That will likely put a damper on much of the dissent against the proposal, but whether the rest of the student body supports the plan is hard to judge.
It’s hard to argue the outdated structure is not in need of repair. The question of whether it needs a “cultural village” or a new parking garage as part of a proposal that could cost as much as $60 million in addition to the repairs will have its day, as a second part of the referendum.
The specifics of the fee are still up in the air. Under most proposals currently up for consideration, the amount of
Asbestos in the Reitz Union piping.
money students pay for the Reitz each year will more than double next year’s total of nearly $5 million and will cost students more than $100 per semester.
The fees will not be covered by Bright Futures unless the Florida Legislature approves a funding increase for the scholarship – an unlikely prospect in what will probably be another year of budget cuts.
Rafael Yaniz, the Student Alliance’s treasury candidate, points out that students know almost nothing about how that money gets spent. The publicly available breakdown of the Union’s $5 million budget for next year consists of four line-items: Salaries, Programs, Facilities and Services.
Union Director Daniels says that for years, the Union’s annual budget has covered only operating expenses, leaving nothing to pay for long-term maintenance. Making matters worse, he says, when he first took his job more than four years ago, there weren’t comprehensive records of the building’s equipment or condition.
Daniels says he found out the age of most of the equipment after he commissioned the engineers’ report last Spring. Yaniz says that raises doubts about the Union’s past managers and underscores the importance of holding current managers accountable.
Yaniz resigned as Johnson’s chief of staff in late January, he says, in part because nobody in his office was interested in overseeing the Union’s use of students’ money, scrutinizing officials’ estimates or considering other funding sources.
“There’s serious questions that need to be asked here,” he says. “The only party that’s doing that is the Student Alliance.”
The expansion proposal has not been unveiled yet, but it’s due some time in February. There is no guarantee we will have time to evaluate it before we vote, so the referendum will only gauge whether the student body supports the general idea of expanding the Reitz. Which ideas are in, which are out, and how much it all will cost will all be hashed out later. That is why this year’s student government elections are the most important in a long time. Failing to elect leaders who hold the people who control our money accountable has cost us millions of dollars and could cost us millions more.
Current SG leaders have referred to a new Union as the legacy of this generation of students. Without proper oversight, Yaniz says, “the only legacy that the Reitz Union fee will create is a legacy of debt.”
Tags: Reitz Union expansion fee • SG elections