ASWSU recently released the 2017-2018 Services and Activities fee allocations, showing the distribution of funding to non-academic departments and organizations.

S&A fees are a part of payments, outside of tuition, that are charged to all WSU students. This year, fees add up to $548 per full time student, according to the ASWSU fee website.

The fees go toward funding nonacademic activities on campus that are meant to enrich student experiences through entertainment, student government, recreation as well as to pay for new buildings and services, according to the website.

For each academic year, ASWSU budgets funding by allocating revenue to departments and organizations based on request, financial need, and student benefit. Each Registered Student Organization must provide the committee with a budget request template and present them with their mission and intended impact upon students.

The S&A Fees Committee for WSU Pullman is composed of five undergraduate students with one-year terms, recommended by ASWSU; the ASWSU president and vice president; and two graduate students with one-year terms, recommended by GPSA.

The role of this committee is to ensure that all laws and regulations are met, to determine program priority between each department or group and to propose an annual review to the WSU president and Board of Regents to establish how fee revenue should be allocated.

In the past four years, total allocation revenue has increased by almost $1.5 million, and had an 8.5 percent increase from the 2016-17 academic year. However, since last year, individual student fees have decreased by 2 percent, going from $559 per student to $548 per student.

The S&A Fees Committee has a goal to see student fees reduced to make WSU more affordable, ASWSU President Jordan Frost said via email.

“We believe any time someone is making a significant financial contribution,” Frost said, “they have a right to know how that money is being spent.”

He said the overall goal is to simplify the process, be more transparent and increase interaction with students.

This year’s report shows that the largest portion of funding went toward the CUB and UREC, each taking up a little over 15 percent of S&A fees.

The next highest percentages of funds go toward Student Involvement and ASWSU, taking up about 9 percent and 8 percent of S&A fees, respectively. WSU Athletics received 7.4 percent.

A majority of the departments received the amount they requested, or only slightly less, with the exception of Health & Wellness, which received more than $144,000 less than its requested allocation. However, this amount was a 23-percent increase to its funding, because they requested twice the amount of last year’s allocation, which was $281,000.