JORDAN PATTERSON
News Editor
FSA’s 2017-2018 budget was passed last month, with some major changes coming to campus next year, including cut hours at dining halls and cafes and the loss of the Tapingo food ordering system.
With the recent reduction to the cost of on-campus living by Residence Life, FSA thought it would be counterproductive to raise the price of the Fredonia meal plan. To ensure this, FSA cut away at the budget elsewhere while hoping to not have to close any businesses.
They did just that, but there have been a few losses. After an extensive process and the approval from SUNY, the budget did pass. FSA expects some feedback from students and they acknowledged that some of it might be negative, but they are confident in their decision to keep the meal plan at a flat rate without shutting anything down.
“With that reduction we wanted to, at least for one year, hold meal plans flat,” said Executive Director of FSA Darin Schulz.
The three biggest driving factors that FSA looked at was that the insurance was increasing to 16 percent, minimum wage is bumping up to $10.40 and they wanted to complement the enrollment numbers.
“We needed the right size to [match] enrollment,” said Schulz. “We are smaller than what we were four years ago, in 2011 we hit our peak, so … we’re right-sizing operations across campus.”
After meetings with the FSA Budget Committee, which includes three students, FSA landed on the current budget.
“Everything stays open next year,” Schulz said. “However, we need to trim some of the hours at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. That’s obviously the slowest times of the day for most units.”
FSA broke the hour trimming into three primary units: Tim Hortons, Centre Point and the cafes. All of these groups will be opening later and closing earlier. The only business that won’t be affected at all is Starbucks.
Tim Hortons will now close at 5 p.m seven days a week, as opposed to being open until 8 p.m. on the weekends and until 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
“When we did the analysis, 85 percent of the business happens before five o’clock,” Schulz said. “So, we feel that the [business] that happens right there after, hopefully, will be able to adjust to get there a little earlier.”
According to Schulz, the amount they project to save by closing a little earlier was significant enough to go ahead with the budget.
Also in the Williams Center, Centre Pointe will be affected by these reductions as well, but only on the weekends. Instead of opening at noon, it will open at 5 p.m.
“There will be something open in that building all day long,” Schulz said.
The cafe hours for next year are as follows: McEwen Cafe will open at 8:30 a.m. and close at 5 p.m.; Mason Cafe will open at 7:45 a.m. and close at 2 p.m.; and TeaRex Cafe and Fenton Cafe will both open at 8:45 a.m. and close at 2:00 p.m.
“So we hopefully won’t have confusion out there, but they should be consistent once everyone gets used to them,” Schulz said.
Schulz said the alternative was to shut down one of the cafes completely.
“We didn’t like that,” Schulz said. “We just didn’t like the feel of that because the cafes are where, especially over the past several years, students have chosen to, you know, want to eat and grab where they are. This was a better alternative.”
The other cut will be Tapingo, the food ordering service, or as Schulz referred to it as a line-jumping tool. Next year, the card system will be updated and Tapingo, according to Schulz, isn’t compatible with the new system. There is a similar system with the new update, but it is significantly more expensive and will not be included in next year’s transition.
FSA will also still be contributing financially elsewhere on campus, a total of $1.056 million that includes $30,000 in scholarships, $143,000 for 46 student accounts that includes $35,000 for Multicultural Affairs Enrichment Programming and $35,000 for Financial Aid Emergency Grants, Campus and Residence Life Activities.
“We’re happy to keep everything open,” Schulz said.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled Schulz’s name. We regret the error.