Fee Transparency Project

Present: Chase Hayes, Brent Insua, May Alvarez, Alexa Chavez, Fiona Weigant, Isaac Karth, Lisa Bishop, Rojina Bozorgnia, Veronica Mitry, Brynna Downey, Lydia Jenkins-Sleczowski, Lucy Rojas

Guests: Associate Vice Chancellor Sue Matthews, CHES and Bill Prime, Executive Director for UCSC Dining

Approval of Agenda and Minutes
1. Brent motions to approve the agenda. May seconds the motion. No objections and motion carries.
2. Rojina motions to approve the minutes. Brent seconds the motion. No objections and motion carries.
Announcements and Updates
1. Announcements
2. Campus Elections - today is the last day to vote. Please take time to vote and encourage others to vote. Voter turnout is quite low and it’s looking like the threshold will not be achieved for the referendum.
Debrief Athletics and Recreation visit from last week
1. Discussion and possible action items
  1. Lucy provides a brief overview of what was learned. Athletics and Recreation is fully operational in a virtual environment with Athletics doing virtual practices and coaches are recruiting. Recreation and Club Sports are doing things like cooking classes, yoga, e-sports. Funding is being used to maintain salary costs and building maintenance, etc.
  2. Action Item: Lucy will follow up with the business manager to ask for the financial report that Isaac had requested during the meeting.
2. Lisa will be providing a summary in the fall for how each referendum fee ended at the end of 2019-2020, see what happened over the course of the year. What happens if there is carryforward? Lisa depends on what happens in fall, if enrollments go down, etc.
3. Fiona says that Athletics and Recreation kept on as many student employees as possible and paid them paid administrative leave for those who cannot work remotely. It seemed that they were maintaining as many services as possible in a virtual format. There are fixed costs and maintenance costs that have to be maintained for facilities.
Visit with Housing and Dining Services
1. Introductions
  1. Guests: Sue Matthews, AVC for CHES and Bill Prime, Executive Director for Dining Services
2. Questions
  1. CHES is the umbrella for Dining and Housing. COVID-19 has had a significant impact on auxiliary services across the nation. Housing and Dining receives revenue from student fees that pay for the entire operation. Housing and Dining are not subsidized by the campus or State.
  2. Current occupancy on campus for spring quarter is about 12% of the total capacity. That equates to under 1,000 undergrads, 165 families and about 50 grad students. In total there are about 2000 people on campus (including employees in staff and faculty housing).
  3. Impact to housing and dining for spring quarter is $43 million. Nationwide, the biggest hit of the pandemic is on housing and auxiliary services.
  4. CHES uses housing revenue for current costs and as equity for future projects such as building new housing locations.
  5. Student fees were fully refunded for spring quarter. There was a grace period for students to move out that was extended into early spring quarter.
  6. Students in residence were relocated to better adhere to social distancing requirements, to respond to operational needs (custodial for example). Challenging orchestration to relocate students. Students were not disadvantaged financially; every student who stayed on campus was charged a triple rate (regardless of the room type they were in).
  7. All students were upgraded to a 7 day meal plan so they had full access to the dining hall; students on a 7 day plan were given a discount.
  8. Planning for summer is still going on. There are some conferences for the summer that are still on the schedule. The anticipated revenue loss for summer is $7 million.
  9. For fall, the campus is evaluating how we will resume operations. How would a housing component look like? Sue presents different scenarios that could accommodate as many as 6,000 campus residents.
    1. How will students be prioritized?
    2. All incoming Frosh and Transfer students have been notified (system-wide) that they won’t be guaranteed housing.
    3. Sue’s hope is that all guarantees can be honored. DRC students have higher priority. Other metrics used to ascertain priority include Pell eligibility and expected family contribution.
    4. Housing will depend on mode of instruction.
  10. From Porter senate: what’s going to happen with RAs? If not as many are needed because of reduced capacity, will the currently hired RAs be compensated in some way?
    1. We will not be serving 8500 students; we will not need a full team of RA’s. Housing does not have the funds to maintain salaries for RAs who may have been hired but won’t have a job.
  11. Sue explains how Housing will make up the budget shortfall. Some strategies include drawing down $18 million from their reserves. Another $16 million savings will be realized by cost reductions, that includes staffing (they will hold off on hiring open positions to help mitigate layoffs).
  12. Dining Updates
    1. Biggest impact is the reduction in customer counts. There is an impact of staffing shortages.
    2. Increased costs for packaging; all service is to-go.
    3. Seating is reduced by 70% when they get to step 2 (dine-in operations).
    4. Food is custom made in small batches, which reduces waste and provides a fresher project for diners.
    5. College 8 Cafe has been open. University Center has been open as a convenience store. They are piloting grab and go, ready to eat meals prepared by the catering department.
    6. Currently serving about 3,600 people per week. No one has been turned away.
    7. They made a change to Crown’s hours, but it was slow at Crown and they closed that dining hall.
    8. The biggest challenge going forward is to reduce seating capacity by 70%. Online pickup, scheduled meal periods, to-go packaging will throw sustainability efforts off. Their waste has had to increase.
    9. EH&S is reporting on best methods for reopening. If they can serve in-house for conferences, they may need to continue the grab and go format.
  13. May asks Sue about housing regarding a potential hybrid model. For those living in dorms, how would shared spaces work?
    1. Sue says that they have analyzed both scenarios for the residence halls. Apartments are self-contained units. In residence halls, they have looked at every college and building to see how many students would be sharing bathrooms in single/double room scenarios. They average about 5.6 students/toilet halls in residence halls, and 5.8 in showers. They are hopeful for the double occupancy scenario so they can house more students. RA’s and CRE’s did this data collection.
    2. Sue says they would do reductions to have an average across all communities. They are hopeful to do doubles and singles.
  14. Sue says they need to ensure space is set aside for quarantine/isolation— they have identified apartments in Porter, apartments in Cowell, and the village. These have an easy ability for isolation for students who need their own bed and bath. 3% of their capacity will be available for these uses. They have had to move over a dozen students into quarantine. Dining has come up with a system to support these students in quarantine.
    1. The Best Western on Ocean Street is another space for students who are living off campus and being currently tested. Dining has delivered food there as well.
  15. Rojina asks the criteria for deciding which students can remain as RAs. How are they prioritizing students?
    1. Sue is not sure. She has asked the group to have a consistent approach across all colleges.
    2. RA experiences will be different with online programming.
  16. Rojina asks about guaranteed housing. How will students be prioritized for receiving housing?
    1. Sue says that incoming students do not have a guarantee. Continuing students may not get that guarantee. There are moral and legal obligations. She is hopeful to honor all those guarantees.
    2. The biggest question right now is instruction, and which instruction will be done remotely vs in person. For example, freshman core courses are critical.
      1. Frosh are not equipped to find spaces in the community. Continuing students are more equipped for this.
    3. Mode of instruction is the primary determinant for prioritization.
  17. Isaac asks for documentation for how CHES is supporting grad students working from home, FSH, and grad student housing.
    1. Sue says that FSH connectivity is difficult.
    2. Grad housing hasn’t changed much. It is still a subsidized program.
  18. Fiona asks about the testing protocol for students using housing/dining services?
    1. Sue says that this kind of testing is in process.
    2. Fiona requests an update for SFAC when this information is available.
  19. Brent asks Sue what the housing rates will look like for next year, such as housing students at the triple rate.
    1. Sue says that all their modeling has been based on single/double options. Revenue is significant, and there is no other source to cover the revenue lost from triple prices.
Adjournment
1. Isaac motions to adjourn, May seconds. No objections, motion carries.

Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 27th @ 3:00 PM