Wichita State’s Student Senate passed the student fees budget, but not before changing policy notes to cover a pay-back of money given to Student Health Services for last year’s deficit, and allow Counseling and Psychological Services to keep charging students $10 per session. 

The student fees budget allocates money to various student services and funds that pay student workers or provide scholarships. In its initial version, it included a proviso, or condition for funding, that would prohibit CAPS from charging students for counseling services. The Student Senate voted to eliminate that measure with 16 in favor, two against and seven abstaining. 

In the March 11 meeting, CAPS Director Christopher Leonard said that if the charges were reduced to zero, CAPS would see around a $57,000 loss in revenue, likely leading to staff cuts. 

Speaker of the Student Senate Matthew Phan yielded his time to Student Body President Jia Wen Wang during the debate period of the motion. Wang said that if she were a senator, she would vote to approve the change. 

Wang’s reasoning was that she didn’t like the fact that there isn’t a formalized process for reducing the cost of a session if a student requested a reduction due to financial insecurities. 

“I gave that feedback to them, they received it very well, and they have stated that in the future if that is what we would like as a student government — to formalize a process in partnership with them — that they would be willing to do so,” Wang said. 

Following a student fee budget shortfall last year that resulted in lower funding for every entity, the Student Government Association gave Student Health Services $75,000 from SGA’s student fee contingency fund to make up for some of the cuts due to the shortfall. 

In the version of the budget that was recommended by the Student Fees Commission,  Student Health would pay back the money by August 1, 2026. But the Student Senate voted at the Wednesday meeting — with permission from Wang — to pay off the loan from SGA’s Special Projects Fund. Wang had to give permission because money from the Special Projects Fund requires authorization from the president to utilize. 

The vote to alter the proviso was 20 in favor, zero against and five abstaining.

Other provisos, which included adding regulations around how student fees were kept and transferred and changing the Non-Traditional Scholarship changing its bylaws in order to receive funding, were left unchanged. 

After the two changes were made, the budget passed unanimously. Student fees will remain unchanged next year if the budget receives approval from WSU President Richard Muma and the Kansas Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public higher education.

The Student Senate meets every week on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Meetings are open to the public and live streamed on SGA’s YouTube.