The university’s capital improvement fee has provided funding for repairs, renovations and construction on campus for student purposes. The Student Union is a $59 million project. (Photo by Ariel Cobbert).
Since 2013, the university’s capital improvement fee has provided funding for repairs, renovations and construction on campus for student purposes.
This semester is the first time the university has tapped into these funds, Larry Sparks, vice chancellor for administration and finance, said.
The fee is $50 for every student enrolled in at least 12 academic hours and is lower for students enrolled in fewer hours. All Ole Miss students pay the fee, regardless of major or campus, each term they take classes.
“The first selected use of (the capital improvement fee) has been the Student Union project. That one is a $59 million project,” Sparks said. “The state provided $10 million. We have some other resources internally, and the remainder of that will come from the fee.”
Sparks said the capital improvement fee will also help offset debts from the new Student Union’s construction.
Bursar Cavett Ratliff said he and his office collect the fees, but the finance department decides where to allocate the money across campus.
“At the end of the semester, they go through and see what students they had at different campuses and departments and allocate the money,” Ratliff said. “If part of it is Tupelo, Online Learning or Desoto, they farm it out to those different places after the semester is over.”
In the 2016 fiscal year, the capital improvement fee collected $2,085,201. Ole Miss has brought in $1,131,985 already this fiscal year.
The Student Union renovation is a three-year project, according to Sparks. He said his team pushed for the three-year goal because of financial uncertainty and need of space.
“Right now we are building the new space, and we are basically doubling the Student Union in size, and that section is moving along on schedule at this point,” Sparks said. “We are two years out from actually unveiling both the completed renovation of the existing and the new space.”
The new Student Union space will open next fall while the old space is out of service during renovation, according to Sparks, if everything stays on schedule.
“The project that is next in line is a student facility which will be the old Whirlpool property. We have just completed the demo of the property, and it is going to be a student recreation center and transportation and parking hub,” Sparks said.
Proceeds from the capital improvement fee will be put toward the new recreation center but not the parking hub. The fees for the parking hub will be taken from other resources because it is not strictly a student facility, Sparks said.
“That facility will have both indoor and outdoor activities. The Turner Center will still be there, and we won’t do away with that,” Sparks said. “This will be, for a lack of a better word, complementary to that facility once it’s completed.”
The university is finalizing the recreational center’s design plan now.
Student and administrator collaboration spawned these two large-scale construction projects several years ago. Since only one project could be completed at a time, the university decided to finish the Student Union renovations first. Sparks said the capital improvement fee has helped with these two renovations.
“For the foreseeable future, those are the two big projects that the fee will go to help take care of the cost,” Sparks said.
