Regents vote to fund MSA, send child care issue to task force

Efforts by the Michigan Student Assembly to pass student fees at the University Board of Regents' June meeting were challenged, but not entirely defeated. MSA President Fiona Rose brought proposals to the table for the MSA student fee, an increase in funding for Student Legal Services, and an additional fee to fund student childcare services.

The Student Legal Services funding increase of $.98 per student per term passed without hesitation. In last fall's student election, students passed a ballot initiative to levy a fee of $1.84. The full fee amount will be phased in over two years, Rose said.

The SLS proposal was the only MSA proposal that did not meet opposition that day, however. Instead of passing the suggested $1 per-student-per-term childcare fee, Regent Rebecca McGowan's friendly amendment prompted the board to create a task force to study possible solutions to childcare problems on campus. McGowan (D-Ann Arbor) expressed concern that the University handle the childcare concerns of students, faculty and staff in the same manner.

"I have a concern that we not handle the childcare issue in one stroke for only a handful of members of this community," she said.

The task force, to be organized by University Provost J. Bernard Machen, is scheduled to report back to the regents no later than November. Any fees determined by then could be implemented for the winter semester, Rose said.

"For students who need childcare this semester, it's going to be another semester of struggle until we can help them out," Rose said.

However, the student/faculty/expert task force will give the University a chance to develop an official policy on childcare and childcare funding, Rose said. The policy would encompass all student, faculty and staff childcare needs, but the task force is designed to emphasize student need in its research.

"Certainly it pushes it back, but if the long run is that it comes up with more ability (to help), then it's worth the wait," said Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford.

Rose said she believed the proposal would have been defeated and dismissed, had McGowan voted against the proposal rather than suggesting the alternative plan.

Rose encountered regental opposition once again when the motion to approve maintaining the MSA fee came to the floor. The regents eventually passed the motion to approve the fee, with Regent Andrea Fischer Newman (R-Ann Arbor) and Regent Deane Baker (R-Ann Arbor) casting "nay" votes.

Baker, an Ann Arbor business owner, voiced concerns about the assembly's financial support of the Ann Arbor Tenants Union.

"I find (the AATU) supporting ideas and projects and lawsuits that are well beyond the interests of the studnts themselves," Baker said. "It appears to me that it's not a legitimate undertaking for a student organization."

With the MSA annual auditor's report in front of her, Newman also made clear her objections to the assembly's support of the AATU, as well as various student groups. "I have difficulty with some of the items here," she said.

Then-President James Duderstadt, presiding over the meeting, reminded the board that the regents traditionally approve MSA's annual fee recommendations, and warned that the board should not dictate, nor take responsibility for, the assembly's expenditures. "If we begin to get into dictating how they spend that money, we slide down a very slippery slope," he said.

The $2.69 MSA fee and the $.98 SLS fee will appear on next semester's tuition bills.

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