IM Sports should be free
For those of you that don't know, Intramurals is now charging to play most of their IM sports (not just golf and action karting like they always have). IM plans on charging students for floor hockey, basketball, arena football, kickball, outdoor soccer, softball, and 4 v 4 volleyball this semester. For example, outdoor soccer and basketball will cost $30 a team. Between our activities fee, athletics fee, and rec center dues, we should be able to play IM sports for free.
Charging students is unjustified especially since the level of service has not changed (they even removed IM Bowling). I know several people that said they were going to stop playing IM sports because of the cost, which goes against IM's mission to "provide healthful exercise, promote leisure, as well as enhance personal development and social interactions for the Mines community".
It is very important that IM sports remains available to all students. It is great stress relief and keeps us sane!
SO GET OUT & PLAY (after you pay)
For the 2015/2015 school year Club Sports, IM Sports, Be Well, and the ORC are all in charge of distributing the money they get allocated as a whole amongst themselves. How they spend their money and the decision to charge for IM sports will be entirely up to them. We expressed how upset students are about the charge to John Howard, who is in charge of IM sports, so we hope that changes are made for next year.
Love,
USG
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Hello,
We agree that IM sports should be free. The issue here is that there was a $17,000 field maintenance fee dropped on IM Sports and Club Sports at the beginning of the semester that was not expected. IM Sports has to cover $10,000 while Club covers $7,000.
This fee was charged by facilities at the beginning of the school year, after allocations had taken place. Allocations take place is the spring for the following school year. Below is a detailed description on what USG cut from the amount they requested in the spring.
Overall IM Sports requested $94,000
CUTS:
-cut $2,000 for new software for video productions
-cut $2,500 for replacing old computers (money can be requested through tech fee)
-cut $5,000 for a new video productions department
- cut $4,000 for a field supervisor for afternoon use
-cut $1200 for creating a new workstation in the oudoor shed.
Total Amount Allocated: 79,305
Everything else was fully funded. This includes clothing/uniforms, equipment, tournaments, registration fees, rentals, extramurals, prizes, funding for employees, and equipment for staff.
As you can see, almost all cuts were made for the software and staff for a video making department they were hoping to implement. The remaining cuts, we admit, can have had a slight impact on IM sports budget. The afternoon outdoor sports would probably take a slight hit without money for the supervisor. Other than that, however, IM sports was funded adequately to provide sports to the student body without a fee.
Again, the issue here is the surprise fee brought by facilities for field maintenance. We are looking into why this fee was imposed while in previous years it has not been an issue. Facilities maintenance is a line item on the schools budget and we don’t believe that the Associated Students Fee, the fee that funds clubs and organization, should be used in these costs. We hope to have more information on the reasoning behind the costs soon.
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Anonymous commented
We pay $42,000+ per year and we can't even have free IM sports? What's our money going to?