(Last Modified on December 28, 2016)

Overall responsibility for monitoring of institutional expenditures is assigned to the institution¡¯s chief business officer. Appropriate monitoring of student fee usage is the responsibility of the business office authorizing payments, the program personnel (student life professionals, athletic personnel, etc.), and the student organizations requesting expenditures of funds. At a minimum, institutions should:

• Provide reports (preferably quarterly) detailing mandatory student fee expenditures to the student fee committee(s) charged with providing budget recommendations on that respective student fee;
• Maintain sufficient records of student fee committee(s) meetings to adequately document the intended use and scope of new student fees and to document the student fee budget(s) presented to the committee; and,
• Periodically conduct independent reviews of or request an internal audit of selected student fee expenditures, to include elective fees.

Additionally, institution chief business officers should periodically review fee surpluses and fund balances to determine if the fund balance level is required to fund a renewal and replacement reserve, is needed to support significant capital expenditures (i.e. buses or other high dollar value equipment), or is supported by a comprehensive multi-year spending plan. Where it is determined that fee surpluses continue to build fund balances not supported by defined needs, institutions should submit a request to reduce the level of the fee charged to students.

The Office of Strategy & Fiscal Affairs will annually conduct reviews of fees, including those both mandatory or elective in nature.