Syracuse University students will now have the opportunity to decide whether the increase in the student activity fee should be frozen.

At the Student Association’s Monday night meeting, the student assembly passed a bill allowing students to vote for the referendum during SA elections from Nov. 11-14.

The current student activity fee is $203, and increases each year by either 4 percent or an amount proportional to the rise in tuition — whichever is lower. President Allie Curtis and Comptroller Stephen DeSalvo co-authored this bill.

DeSalvo said money has carried over throughout the last three years to the point where it wasn’t necessary to continue increasing the fee. He said the money SA has been spending came from the most recent funds paid by current students, not money that had been accumulated from previous years.

If the referendum is voted on by students, the budget office and SA would look at the balance again near the end of the 2015-16 school year to determine if the fee should remain frozen or not.

DeSalvo said if students approve the proposal, each individual won’t save a large amount of money, but the total savings overall would be much larger.

“The main idea was that it’s not necessarily a huge savings, but anything is better than what we currently have,” he said.

In total, DeSalvo said the fee savings would amount to almost $100,000.

DeSalvo also introduced a bill to the assembly to reform the way groups give out complimentary tickets for events that use SA money or the student activity fee for funding.

Currently, there is no limit on the number of complimentary tickets an organization can give away to a specific group of people for an event. The bill would only allow organizations to give out five complimentary tickets, or up to 2 percent of the venue capacity, whichever is greater, to one particular group.

The bill will be formally presented to the assembly during next week’s meeting.

The assembly also elected Ben Jones and Phil Porter to be representatives in the University Senate.

Jones, the current parliamentarian for SA, said having student voices in the Senate is important.

Dan Hernandez, chair of the Board of Elections and Membership, said Jones brought a lot to the table.

“Ben has experience, is committed and I know he can do great work,” Hernandez said.

Porter, a freshman political science major, said he felt it was his obligation to be a voice on the Senate so he could represent his constituents.

Hernandez said Porter has done well in his time in SA to represent the student body.

The assembly also elected Amanda DeNardo, a junior international relations major, to the Board of Elections and Membership.

DeNardo said she wanted to work toward getting full representation on the SA assembly from each of the different colleges, as well as the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

“We need voices from everyone and need voices from every different type of student,” she said.

Published on November 5, 2013 at 1:45 am

Contact Brett: blsamuel@syr.edu | @Brett_Samuels27