Rodin breaks down General Fee budget

University President Judith Rodin provided Daily Pennsylvanian reporters with a breakdown of the General Fee budget yesterday, in an attempt to clear up the building controversy over how these funds are allocated. Earlier this week, the Undergraduate Assembly and Graduate and Professional Student Association unanimously passed a resolution requesting that the University Treasurer and Budget Office examine the budget. The request was made after a discrepancy on the exact revenue from the fee was noted. The Budget Office recorded $24.5 million, while the Treasurer's Office assessed the amount at $25 million, according to UA Treasurer and College sophomore Steve Schorr. But Rodin said the UA found contradicting figures because the two offices included different data in their calculations. In this fiscal year, the projected revenue from the General Fee is $25.1 million, and there is no dispute over the figures, Rodin said. Of the $25.1 million in General Fee revenues, Rodin estimated that students have not yet paid nearly $500,000, which could account for part of the discrepancies in the budget allocation. The General Fee revenues also include late fees for admissions and deposits that are left over when a student reserves a place in an incoming class and then does not use it, Rodin said. Currently, $1.3 million is doled out to the Student Activities Council, and $13.5 million for student services not allocated through SAC. Most of the latter category includes the Office of the Vice Provost for University Life, according to VPUL Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum. Also allocated in the $13.5 million is Health and Wellness services, Student Counseling, Information Services and Student Health, according to Rodin. Approximately $4.8 million is allocated for Escort services, admissions and student financial services, $3.2 million for Athletics and $1.3 million for ResNet debt service. Deferred maintenance projects are also allocated $1 million from the General Fee. Penn and Harvard are the only universities in the Ivy League to separate fees from tuition, while the other schools fold tuition and fees together. "This is a means which has provided Penn students for a long time with a way of knowing how much those fees are," Rodin said. She added that the University is reengineering the VPUL area as well as other departments to ensure that each gets real value for every dollar spent there. "On balance, everyone gets some benefit from the different allocations of the fee," Rodin said. "But this is an effort to really balance everything out to make sure that the services provided to students are high quality and accessible." The University bills all students for the General Fee on their bursar bills. The fee is $1,674 a year for undergraduates. Graduate students pay $1,278 and professional students pay $1,008.