Texas State not
making full use of environmental service fee
By Nick McCown
The environmental service fee (ESF) at Texas State
University, a mandatory $1 per semester for each student, is the lowest of all
Texas schools, despite the university being the first in the state to establish
this type of fee.
The ESF generates $73,000 each year, which is allocated by the
Environmental Service Committee (ESC)
on a case-by-case basis to fund various student- or faculty- led environmental projects
on campus. ESC meetings are held twice a month to review and consider proposals
for funding.
The ESC has funded projects such as reusable water bottle
filling stations, a student-run composting organization called Bobcat Blend and
outdoor recycling bins, as well as several river cleanups. The committee
recently funded an initiative to provide recycling furnishings for university
sporting events, according to ESC annual reports.
Water Hydration Station in Evans
Liberal Arts Building funded by ESC. Photo Courtesy of Nick McCown
Mark Carter, a Geography professor who has been a voting
member of the ESC since its inception, recalled the steps students took to get
the fee established.
“We were totally pioneers,” Carter said. “Since we were changing a fee, we had to have
a referendum vote among the students to agree to have this fee.”
In 2000, members of the student chapter of the National
Association of Environmental Professionals and the Associated Student
Government devised a bill to create a student fee to fund environmental
projects and education on campus, according to the ESC webpage.
“ Once that was approved, a small group of these students
ended up going to Austin and speaking to some of the legislators about the fee,
explaining to them what it was all about,” Carter said. “That’s how it became
official public policy that we could have that type of fee.”
The Environmental Service Fee
Bill was approved by the Legislature in 2003 during the 78th session and was
signed into law by Governor Rick Perry, setting precedence for Texas schools to
have an environmental fee, according to the webpage. The fee went into effect
at Texas State fall 2004.
Bobcat Blend compost
receptacles in LBJ Student Center funded by ESC. Photo courtesy of Nick McCown.
Texas State was the only
school in the state to utilize an environmental fee until 2009 when Austin
Community College established its Sustainability Fund. In 2010, University of
Texas – Austin, Texas A&M University, University of Texas – San Antonio,
University of Texas – El Paso, University of North Texas and Rice University adopted
similar fees.
“I think of that old saying about when someone copies what
you’re doing that that’s the highest form of flattery,” Carter said. “Well, we were all pleased a couple of years
ago when the articles came out about the fact that UT and A&M had both decided to adopt an
environmental service fee that was essentially modeled after what we had done
here.”
The rates of the recent environmental fees all exceed Texas
State’s ESF. The aforementioned schools require
between $3 and $5 per semester, according to an online
index provided by the Campus Green Fund Collaborative, a non-profit
collective of campus coordinators involved in managing environmental funds.
Data drawn from Campus Green Fund
Collaborative ‘Green Fund Index.’
According to the data, this means the funds Texas State
generates per capita from the ESF are on average 4.25 times less than other
schools in the state.
“We have a much lower fee than most universities,” said
Nancy Nusbaum, account manager for the ESC. “A lot of them focus on utilities,
energy consumption, that sort of thing. Our projects have mostly been on the
beautification, education, recycling, composting side.”
“We end up with a budget somewhere around $70,000 per year
right now. I think that’s a very reasonable amount of money,” Carter said. “I
like to think of the ESC as a stimulus fund. We like to stimulate people to try
to think in a sustainable way. That’s why I say more money doesn’t necessarily
mean we can do that better.”
Carter said committee members have proposed fee increases in
the past, but no change has been made.
ESC Chair Mahtisa Djahangiri said her goal as head of the
committee was to get the fee raised.
“We want to be able to say look we have no money. We need
more,” Djahangiri said. “We won’t get the fee raised unless we do that.”
“That’s an issue we have talked about over the last year or
two, about whether we want to move forward with potentially increasing the fee
in the future so we can do more things,” Carter said. “Right at the moment, we
have been told by the various people that understand how all those things work
that the legislature is not in the mode of adding more fees.”
Nusbaum said this type of increase would not be considered
until the committee shows it can expend all of the money generated by the fee. Nusbaum
said the ESC has never allocated all the money available since she has been
involved.
“The committee has always asked, but I told them until they
use up all the money for a couple of years, and they have a long list of
requests for funding, the administration will never approve an increase,”
Nusbaum said.
“We don’t intend to leave money. It just happens. Sometimes
we’ll go weeks without any proposals,” Djahangiri said. “We need more proposals
in order to spend all of the money.”
Nusbaum said when the ESC doesn’t spend all of the money it
has allocated, the amount falls down into reserves and is available for the
next year.
Data drawn from university budget
reports.
According to university budget reports, the ESC’s reserve
account balance has been at least $56,000 since 2008, with a peak of $94,633 in
2012.
Gwendolyn Hustvedt, temporary ESC faculty voting member,
said, “The (ESC’s) idea is simply to get the very best projects completed
possible. They’re responsible for the spending of the student fees. They’re
representing the students, and they want to see what ends up happening be as
effective as possible.”
“I think if were a
dollar and (UT is) five, I think we’re doing an amazing job with that dollar
and that we could potentially do a lot more,” Hustvedt said.
Djahangiri said, “We want to get the word out every way we
can so students know they can come to us and help make their campus better.”
Hustvedt said one way to extend the ESC brand could be to
hire students on a continuous basis for website maintenance and communications
purposes.
“These students can help raise awareness of the benefits of
the sustainability research, education and student activities we do here at
Texas State,” Hustvedt said.
Carter agreed staffing positions within the ESC would help
with campus awareness and could increase transparency of the committee.
“Record keeping is always a challenge. We have not been
consistent over the years in terms of those annual reports,” Carter said. “ If
we had a staff member that 10 hours of
their time each month was devoted to coming to the ESC meetings, taking the
minutes, updating the website and processing all of the proposals, that would
be a good thing.”
