Student fees were raised again to offset a debt incurred by the university.

“During the spring semester, the mass transit board saw a need to raise student fees 56 cents per credit hour in order to erase the $15,400 debt,” said Todd Allen, Student Association Mass Transit Board adviser.

But how much debt still remains is unknown. “Until we get information from the university on enrollment, grants, withdrawals and dropped courses, we won’t know how the debt stands,” said Rick Schaschwary, busing graduate assistant.

“That figure is where the debt stood as of June 31,” he said. “We hope that the fee hike will take care of the entire debt.”

The debt was blamed on an error in the figures NIU gave to the board last year. “There’s a margin for error provided for in the figures, but last year they were way off,” Allen said. “People would be surprised how much things like withdrawals and add/drop figures affect our budget and if those figures are inaccurate, it can hurt us even more.”

Aside from fee increases, the SA has other ways to try to cancel the debt. “Advertising space on the buses brings in a little revenue for us but the thing that saved us the most money last year was the combination 7/9 route,” Allen said.

“Between the 7 and 9 routes to Sycamore there was a lot of overlapping service … stops were hit by both buses within minutes of each other,” he said.

“The (mass transit) board decided that it was fiscally responsible to combine the two routes. It takes a few minutes longer to cover the whole route but we managed to save $10,000 by combining them.”

The SA also receives credit when the buses are not being used. Huskie Lines manager Charles Battista said, “the base bid is 13 buses. If they go below that, then they are credited for non-use and at the end of the year we give them (the SA) a check for the total amount of credit.”

Up until the current fall semester, there were two buses that were not in use by Huskie Lines. “A new 4R route was established to handle the (west) residence halls,” Allen said. “There were a lot of students being passed up because buses were full.”

“I feel that if someone is paying for a service then they should be able to use it,” he said.

Allen said the additional 4R route was voted on by the mass transit board last spring. He said the mass transit board did not think the additional route would add to the deficit. “We were under the assumption that the fee increase would get rid of the deficit.

“The mass transit board is currently conducting studies to run the system more effectively,” Allen said. “Our goal is to increase efficiency without cutting service.”