ORIGINAL STORY POSTED DECEMBER 5, 2010
The price students pay to park on campus has already skyrocketed by about 50 percent over the last seven years, but that didn’t stop two Student Government Association officials from pushing to hike parking decal prices even more.
On Friday, Chief Justice Matt McCann, who was appointed by Student Body President Michael Kilbride, made a motion recommending that the price of a parking decal go up another seven percent during a meeting of UCF’s Parking and Transportation Advisory Committee.
After the chair helped McCann clarify his motion, he asked if any other committee members would second the motion. The committee sat in silence for several seconds, and after none of the administrators on the committee spoke up, Joe DeFrancisco, the other SGA member and student representative, raised his hand to second the motion. An administrator then spoke up to second the motion as well.
Seconds later, the committee voted unanimously to approve McCann’s motion, sending a recommendation that the Board of Trustees make the increase official at its January meeting. Doing so would raise annual parking decals by $21 dollars for faculty parking, $12 for staff parking, and $6 dollars for student parking, bringing the cost to $317, $189 and $94, respectively.
In 2003, an annual permit for faculty, staff and students cost only $200, $120 and $60 respectively. Although the price students pay to park since then has increased by about 50 percent over recent years, students don’t think the amount of parking spaces available to them has grown at the same rate.
“I don’t think its right,” said James Winborne, a senior Business Administration major. “If we’re paying more, we should be getting better quality.”
McCann expressed during the meeting that he hoped to use SGA resources to educate students about why the increase was passed, in hopes it would help quell student uproar.
But when KnightNews.com emailed SGA President Michael Kilbride early Friday afternoon to find out what steps he may have taken to reach out to students and seek their input, he ignored it. It’s not yet clear whether Kilbride used any of the iPads or computers he justified spending thousands of student dollars on in order to seek student input to do so for this issue which affects so many people.
Administrators at the meeting did try to explain why a decal increase would be helpful, however. Judith Monroe, Associate VP Administration and Finance and William Merck VP, Administration and Finance, pointed out that parking receives no funding from the state, lacks donations from the public and has to be funded by the University.
They also explained that they get complaints all the time about the parking situation and this increase is necessary to fund more parking projects like the new parking garage being built, leasing the Towers parking garage, and other parking projects around campus.
Still, Valerie Stephen, a freshmen Business Marketing major, didn’t believe the additional spots coming with the new garage justified a price for a parking decal she feels is already too inflated for what students get.
“I got a parking pass and I think it was way too much money to spend to park here,” Stephen said.
KnightNews.com checked the price of parking at Florida State University, and found a student decal costs only $78 for the entire year — about 20 percent less than what SGA’s McCann proposed UCF students pay.
The new parking garage being built at UCF contains 1,300 parking spots and costs approximately $17 million. It is expected to open at the end of spring.
SGA responded on Tuesday afternoon to an email KnightNews.com sent Friday asking what steps SGA took to seek student input before voting for the price hike sent Friday afternoon. The email also asked if Kilbride, as a member of the BOT, would vote for the increase during that January meeting.
SGA ignored both questions in its response which came four days after the email was sent, and although SGA wouldn’t say whether it asked students their input, the response did say the decision to hike decal fees was “discussed and vetted thoroughly by all members of the committee.” SGA also said the hiked fee will help cover the price of new garages and improve the parking system for students.
