The proposed Green Fee at UCF and other Florida universities has a new sponsor in the Florida Legislature.
House Rep. Robert Schenck, R-44, a UCF alumnus, has recently agreed to lead the bill through the House during next spring’s legislative session.
Schenck’s support comes after several weeks of student government efforts to find a representative willing to sponsor the bill in the House.
According to SGA Director of Governmental Affairs Stephen Mortellaro, UCF has been the statewide leader on the Green Fee issue since its conception.
“We have and will continue to use all the resources that we have at student government to ensure the passage of the Green Fee bill next spring,” he said.
UCF has been pushing for the Green Fee for three years.
The initiative was originally brought to students’ attention through a campaign led by the Eco-Advocates of Central Florida in the spring of 2007. Green Fees already existed at universities in other states, and SGA agreed to place the issue on that year’s student body presidential election ballot as a referendum.
The results indicated 67 percent of students supported the Green Fee. Other universities around the state followed suit with similar referendums, and all of those resulted in majority support for the measure, according to Mortellaro.
In order to turn student approval for the initiative into legislative reality, SGA partnered with Florida Sen. Lee Constantine, R-22, a UCF alumnus whose district includes the main UCF campus. Constantine sponsored an amendment to Senate Bill 1996 concerning funding for UCF’s new medical school in this year’s spring legislative session. However, due to time constraints, it did not make it out of the Legislature.
For the next session, which will run from March to May of 2010, the Green Fee will no longer be presented in the form of an amendment but rather as a stand-alone bill.
“We are confident that with statewide student support and strong sponsors in the Florida Legislature, the Green Fee bill will pass this spring,” Mortellaro said. “It’s something that students want and something that will be beneficial to both the environment and the wallets of students and the university itself.”
Some may wonder how an extra fee will benefit their wallet, and Mortellaro has an answer.
“The purpose of the Green Fee is twofold: one is to lower the campus’ ecological footprint and the other is to save the university and students money by investing in renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects,” he said.
According to Mortellaro, energy costs are the university’s second-highest expense after personnel expenditures.
If approved, the Green Fee would be overseen by a committee made up of students and administrative appointees in a 50-50 ratio.
The continuation of the Green Fee would also have to be reconfirmed by student referendum every three years after the initial approval referendum, which would take place after the bill is passed. The initial fee is planned to be around 75 cents per credit hour, with the max amount capped at one dollar. However, any changes to the fee must be confirmed by referendum.
For Mortellaro, the Green Fee is a win-win-win initiative. In his opinion, “the Green Fee bill reduces costs, improves the environment and empowers students.”
There is not bipartisan support for the bill among UCF’s political organizations, however.
“In a time when the costs of higher education are on the rise, I do not see this additional fee as wise or fair to students,” said Christina Aiuto, chairwoman of the UCF College Republicans. “The basic reason students pay for college is to receive an education that will lead to a career. We do not pay tuition in order to financially advance a noneducational endeavor — whether it be economic or charitable or environmental.”
She said the “green project” will make UCF more than $4 million every five years.
“Let it be a voluntary choice by the student to donate their money or not to renewable energy causes; the Green Fee is an unjustifiable tuition hike,” she said.
For Ross Harrison, president of the College Democrats at UCF, the Green Fee is a worthwhile endeavor.
“I completely support such a proposition,” he said. “It's students each paying a nominal fee into a pool of resources that will produce a collective good. It's something that students have been shown to support, and it's great that it may now be coming to fruition.”
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