Four of the six undergraduate Tier III organizations at the University of Connecticut’s Storrs campus – Undergraduate Student Government (USG), UConn Student Television (UCTV), Nutmeg Publishing and The Daily Campus – have requested a fee increase this year.
Students will have the opportunity to vote on the proposed fee increases in the Referenda section of the 2024 Joint Elections ballot, which can be found on UConn’s website. If an organization’s increase is approved, it would go into effect as soon as the Fall 2025 undergraduate student fee bill.
Each Tier III organization’s fee makes up a portion of the Student Activity fee on the semesterly undergraduate fee bill. Currently, all Tier III fees are $45 for USG, $5 for UCTV, $4 for Nutmeg, $10 for The Daily Campus, $9 for WHUS Radio and $23 for the Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG).
USG is asking for a $10 increase from $45 to $55 per semester, UCTV is requesting a $3 increase from $5 to $8, Nutmeg is requesting a $2 increase from $4 to $6 and The Daily Campus is asking for an increase of $4, from $10 to $14.
According to USG Comptroller Ben Keilty, USG has already had to close its Tier II funding this year, which is much earlier than in previous years, largely due to a lack of funds to the organization. In an email to students on Monday, Keilty said USG’s budget “has not increased in nearly a decade,” adding that any additional funding from the COVID-19 pandemic was allocated to Tier II funding as well as food insecurity initiatives.
“We do not have the financial resources that we need in order to meet student demand long term,” Keilty said in an interview.
Keilty mentioned that the total amount of funding requests by Tier II organizations came out to around $1.2 million last year. This year, USG had only $900,000 available to give out, resulting in the early closing of the Tier II funding system, according to Keilty.
“Without an increase to the USG budget long term, we’re looking at a number somewhere between $700,000 and $800,000 for what USG can give out to clubs and that, we have established, is not enough,” Keilty added.
According to UCTV Chief Financial Officer Vivian Qiu, this year’s request for a fee increase has to do with the rising costs of equipment and maintenance, as well as the need for the organization to “grow to support more opportunities and projects for students.”
“The proposed fee increase is vital for UCTV to maintain and improve its offerings,” Qiu said in a statement. “It would support access to quality equipment, facilitate attendance at media conferences, and provide comprehensive equipment training. Additionally, it would enable UCTV to continue offering free student-run recording and filming services, enhancing the student experience and fostering a vibrant creative community.”
UCTV Chief Executive Officer Patrick Carlon emphasized the importance of expanding UCTV’s sports coverage and inability to do so without the additional funds.
“Additionally, expanding travel opportunities, such as coverage of mens and womens basketball and football games nationwide and attendance at the prestigious NAB conference in Las Vegas, is imperative,” Carlon wrote in a statement. “However, the rising costs associated with such endeavors necessitate additional funding to sustain these invaluable experiences.”
Skyler Kim, Nutmeg’s Editor-In-Chief, said the organization requires more funds to be able to expand event coverage that contributes to each yearbook, emphasizing that the size of the student body has increased year by year and Nutmeg’s contract has gone up in price.
“Our yearbook requires a particular contract and with the scale of the school getting bigger and bigger…that contract has gone up in price,” Kim said in an interview. “We’re trying to get more work done so that we can cover more events and improve our community outreach, because the whole goal with the yearbook is that you cover as much as you can and create a sense of what the culture was for that year specifically.”
Previously, Nutmeg had been approved for a $1 increase in 2019, resulting in the current $4 fee amount. In 2019, the minimum wage was much lower than it is now, which Kim cited as another reason the fee increase is necessary.
The Daily Campus’ Business Manager Naiiya Patel said the decision to request a fee increase comes from prior financial analysis that showed the organization is now spending more than it makes each year.
“Because we had a surplus from the [pandemic] when we weren’t printing for a few months we had saved up, and that made it look like we had a lot of money right now,” Patel said in an interview. “But as soon as that surplus decreased, we would be spending more than we were getting and then eventually going into a deficit.”
Patel added that while The Daily Campus has been able to create content, it hasn’t been at the desired level due to a variety of factors.
“We’ve been able to create content to a certain level, but not to the level that we would like where we could cover every single story that we’re asked to cover,” Patel said. “We would like to go back to some of the things we used to do like more travel for every single section [rather than just Sports]. Our biggest thing is that we want to hire more people to increase our staff and produce a greater quality of work.”
Patel also said that with more employees working, the organization would be able to start its video section again.