"Over $1 Million in Student Fees, Dating to 2005, Still Unused"

Over $1 million in student money is currently sitting, unused, in UB financial reserves. And every semester, students pay more.

For the 2005-2006 school year, SUNY approved a $3.50 increase in the health fee – a part of the comprehensive fee included in every student's tuition – to fund the building of a student health center on the North Campus, according Barbara Ricotta, vice president of student affairs.

There is no such health center.

The center, originally planned for the Richmond Quad, never got built. But students are still paying the extra $3.50, according to James Nadbrzuch, associate vice president for resource and support service.

The university currently has $1,075,000 of student money in the "health center reserve," Nadbrzuch said.

And though the university has been collecting the money from students for six years, there are no solid plans or timeline in which to build a health center, said Susan Snyder, director of health services.

"We have done a start and stop to this project three or four times in my 10 years here," Snyder said. "This is not a new problem for us."

The fee is still being collected because "it has always been a priority to establish a North Campus satellite at the next opportunity," Nadbrzuch said in an email.

Richmond Quad was not a suitable location because of asbestos abatement, Snyder said.

The Spectrum first asked Ricotta about the existence of the $3.50 fee on Jan. 31. On Feb. 7, Ricotta responded in an email, saying that "a committee's just being formed" to review the Richmond cafeteria as a possible location for the health center.

The Spectrumreceived a list of the committee members on Feb. 21.

Snyder said that the committee has yet to meet.

Several locations for a health center have been discussed over the years, Snyder said, including what is now the Richmond dining hall, which will be vacated once the cafeteria in Red Jacket is completed in May.

"It will take us a few months to determine if the [Richmond cafeteria] location will work," Ricotta said in an email. "In the meantime, the money continues to sit in reserve waiting for a location to be identified."

Snyder hopes the committee will be successful in finding a space. She said she feels "a little more confident this time around."

The committee includes eight faculty members, including Snyder and Ricotta, and is currently seeking two student representatives, according to Ricotta.

"We have been talking about this for years," Snyder said. "We filed some paperwork with Facilities, Planning and Design in the summer time, talking about our interest in brining a health center to the North Campus. We have been talking about this in seriousness [throughout the] the fall semester."

The comprehensive fee for undergraduates was $1,477 for the 2004-2005 school year and $1,559 for 2005-2006. It continued to increase; by 2008, it was $1,708, according to documents provided by UB spokesman John Della Contrada.

Della Contrada's documents covered 2004-2007; The Spectrum contacted the Student Response Center to see how much the comprehensive fee and health fee was from 2008 to 2011, but the center didn't provide the requested information.

"We don't speak to The Spectrum anymore; you've burned us too many times," said Brenda Reed, administrative assistant of student academic records and financial service, when asked about obtaining the comprehensive and health fees from the past seven years.

This year, the comprehensive fee for undergraduates is $1,011, and $141.25 of that is allocated to "student health, counseling and disability services,"according to the SRC's website.

All students are required to pay the comprehensive fee, unless their studies take place outside UB's campus and the student doesn't have a valid parking pass, according to the SRC's website.

This year, $3.50 of the $141.25 health fee each student paid went into the million-dollar reserve.

"The reserve is kept in a university health services account," Nadbrzuch said in an email."The reserve will be applied toward renovation/construction costs of a student health facility."

Email: news@ubspectrum.com