I recenty went on to register for new classes and was baffled to see that I had additional student fees to pay. An addition $64 dollars worth. To my understanding there was a referendum to pass this vote. What I would like to know is do you justify the total votes of 494 students as a representative population of Kwantlen's 14000 students. Is there no minimum participation clause in you laws that state a minimum number of people must vote to pass laws.
My other beef is with the implementation of the U-pass. I am sorry, but I drive to school. I do not appreciate hearing that I will have to start paying another $100 to get the u-pass that I will never use. If you are going to bring this in you need to make it optional for those who have not use for it.
Hi there,
I sincerely apologize for taking so long to respond. Not to belittle the importance of your question, the forums here are not used that often, even I who used to post to my work blog very regularly haven't posted or checked in here in awhile. I started a detailed response to your post and with the arrival of our extended Olympic break I thought it was high time I re-visited the forums again.
On the Rules governing how fees are paid to the KSA...[/u]
For a few years now, the KSA has been examining our fee structure thoroughly with the main concern being ensuring that it was clear where your money is going. You can see a bit of the conversation that occurred on fees on these very forums ---
http://forums.kusa.ca/index.php?topic=39.0 Specifically there are a number of processes that must be followed in order to increase student fees, as follows:
Section 27.1 of the University Act discusses “Student society fees,” stating clearly that fees can only be designated by referendum: "
(1) Subject to subsection (2), on annual notice from a student society, the board must collect student society fees and remit them to the student society if (a) the board collected fees on behalf of the student society between June 1, 1998 and June 1, 1999, or (b) the student society has been designated by regulation and the amount of the student society fees has been approved by a majority of the members of the student society who voted in a referendum of that student society.(2) If a student society referred to in subsection (1) (a) or (b) changes student society fees, the new amount or the rate of change must be approved, before a notice is issued under subsection (1), by a majority of the members of the student society who vote in a referendum of that student society." The University Act can be found online here:
http://www.bclaws.ca/Recon/document/freeside/--%20U%20--/University%20Act%20%20RSBC%201996%20%20c.%20468/00_96468_01.xmlTo call a referendum,
Article 4(3) of the KSA Bylaws stipulate that referendums may be called in two specific ways as follows: "
The Director of Operations shall, within forty-five (45) days, call a referendum of the Society upon: i. a Two-thirds (2/3) Resolution of Council; or ii. being served a petition stating the purpose of the General Meeting, duly signed by two hundred and fifty (250) Members or ten percent (10%) of the Members, whichever is less."
Article 4(10) of the bylaws states that: "
A referendum, subject to these Bylaws, shall be acted upon by the Society where: i. a majority, or such greater percentage as may be required by law, of the votes cast support the referendum; and ii. the number of votes cast is equal to or greater than two-hundred and fifty (250)."
The KSA Bylaws are adopted by the student body at general meetings of the Society. Our current bylaws have been in place since 2000, and a copy of it can be found online here:
http://kusa.ca/files/File/Bylaws2000.pdfYou noted that 494 seems too low to be representative of the student population and to an extent I agree. A few years ago I proposed changing the bylaws to require that part ii be changed so that at least 60% of the students who voted on each campus was in favour of the change. But to do this or to increase the minimum number of students needed to vote in a referendum, another general meeting would have to be held with 250 students present, and at least 2/3rds voting in favour of a change to the bylaws in that area.
Ultimately though, a lot of advertising went into the referendum and Kwantlen students --- who are part of an institution that is becoming larger every year, with more 4 year university programs coming online every year --- have to take it upon themselves (like you have) to learn the issues and vote when the opportunity arises.
On the changes to the fee structure and a bit on the new programs that will be offered...From Summer 2005 through to Summer 2008, the KSA collected a simple flat fee of $5.25 per credit per semester that went into a general operating account. There were many who felt this was exorbitant. A referendum was held in the Spring of 2008 to change this fee to a flat fee of $7.00 per student per semester, plus $3.00 per credit per semester to a maximum of $47.00 per semester; plus $2.00 per student per semester that went into a lobby fund, as well as $1.00 per student per semester that went into a KSA awards & bursaries fund. This change went into place starting in the fall 2008 semester but it did have a negative effect on the amount of money coming into the association, resulting in a $200,000 decrease in membership fees for 2008 alone. In drafting its 2009 budget, the KSA did a very thorough review of its spending and restructured the HR for elected officials and non-elected staff to make up for the short fall. But to continue doing more for students, the KSA knew it had to change how fees worked so that new programs that directly benefit students could be launched.
Discussion continued in 2009, and all officials and staff were challenged to examine areas where new services could be offered, and where dedicated fees could be proposed to the membership to help take pressure off the base budget. And with that our officials and staff took the lead and came up with some very interesting ideas, which formed a proposal for a number of "year one" fees . And as per Article 4(3)(i) of the KSA Bylaws, on August 18, 2009 the KSA Council passed a number of motions to put a number of referendum questions to the students, so that the students could decide where they wanted to take their university, one year into its existence. Minutes of the August 18 meeting can be found here:
http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/2630.pdf The main notice of the referendum can be found here:
http://kusa.ca/referendum_notice_fall_2009.pdf One thing the KSA has done is introduce and live up to a commitment to not raise fees in any academic year by more than 15%. All of your elected officials are students too - so we know that things can be tight for students. But we worked to balance that with a need to do more for you.
For example, our REBBOT Computer Repair Service is going to be a program designed to help all students with technical support for their PCs or laptops. With funds that come in for this program, if your computer breaks down, you can get it repaired at no cost for labour. Many places like London Drugs and Future Shop charge a lot of money just to look at your computer when something goes wrong. And if your video card has burnt out or a hard drive has failed, we'll help replace that card at a discounted rate. And we'll both hire students and get volunteers who are taking computer tech courses at Kwantlen to help troubleshoot the computers - giving students in computer programs valuable access to real work experience.
And many of the other fees offer similar things - where we can offer more to students to help bring about a more vibrant student life on campus. The Clubs and Events fee has been a big help and essentially covered the loss the KSA suffered when the fees changed back in 2008. And it's allowed us to do more in this area - there is now more money for clubs than ever before. And this fee helped us re-hire a dedicated events & clubs support person; as well as a marketing coordinator who is a current student about to graduate from Kwantlen's entrepreneurial leadership program.
The same story can be told for each of the new fees. They all offer more for students once implemented - from services to student employment and volunteer opportunities on campus.
And as time moves on, we will of course be implementing some of the other fees that were approved. The nicest thing about dedicated fees is that those fees can only be spent in the areas it is dedicated too. With the exception of a small 5% administrative levy that can be charged to each fee, 95% of the fee will go towards the service area it is named to fund.
On the costs levy and the possibility to lower the fees going to the KSA's operating account...Now, I think it is important to note that with the new administrative fee being charged to each dedicated fee, the KSA is now in a position where we can now look to lower the $7.00 per student per semester fee that currently goes into a joint operating / capital account. Right now I'm examining a proposal to cut this fee in half, while slightly raising the $3.00 per credit per semester fee to $3.15 per credit per semester. The overall effect of this change would be a direct savings to students, no matter how many courses they are taking. For a student enrolled in one three credit course. Overall students would see their fees paid and earmarked for a "joint operating / capital fund" drop from $16.00 for that one three credit course to just $12.95 for that course, resulting in a savings of 19.06%. And although the new structure will also result in an approximate loss in revenue of $87,000 for the KSA, the KSA will not go into deficit as the administrative costs levy is currently bringing in about $100,000 which can be used towards supporting the general operating fund. More information on the number crunching related to this change can be found here:
http://www.steveleenow.net/kwantlen/elections/spring2010general/fees2infosheet.pdfWith the benefits of this costs levy, I'm also looking to eliminate costs associated with other services we offer. For example, last Friday our executive passed a motion to eliminate the fees charged on locker rentals effective at the start of the Summer 2010 semester. The revenue the KSA traditionally brings in for locker rentals has always been under $10,000, so a change in this area will not negatively affect us and hopefully it will make locker usage rates go up. We are already looking at getting rid of the small lockers and replacing them with larger units that are more usable for students.
On U-Pass...In regards to our U-Pass work, the KSA is very, very cognizant of the fact that a large majority of our students in Langley and Cloverdale do not take transit and that transit in those areas sucks. More Surrey students use transit and even more in Richmond use transit as the transit that services those two campuses is much better than transit in the valley (with Richmond probably having the best service of all Kwantlen campuses, especially with the opening of the Canada Line).
This KSA is working on a multi-pronged approach in regards to this issue. In our talks with Translink and other bodies, we are pushing the fact that if Kwantlen is to sign onto any kind of a U-Pass program, transit service between the campuses and to the campuses would have to be dramatically improved - especially in Langley and Cloverdale, for us to justify going to the students with a proposal.
Last year, during the provincial election campaign, the KSA lobbied and got the government to agree that the U-Pass program should be expanded to all campuses. As part of this, the KSA is promoting the STEP solution / plan, details of which can be found here:
http://www.kusa.ca/upassFinally, we are working on developing something similar to the UBC TREK program -
http://www.trek.ubc.ca/ - which would assist students like you who don't primarily ride transit. Money from the U-Pass program would feed into a Kwantlen Trek program that helps improve transportation alternatives for all students - from carpooling to improved support for those who ride bikes and much more. We've even had very preliminary secondary research done into the feasibility of having our own shuttle service between the four campuses and major transit hubs until Translink was able to fill the void in areas where it exists.
I encourage you to keep an eye on the kusa.ca/upass page, as it will become the place to learn about the latest that is happening on Kwantlen's road to a U-Pass program.
