At 12:01 a.m. every Monday, students’ meal-plan amounts are reset to its weekly allocation, with any unused money disappearing forever.

When this happens, some can be seen frantically buying trays full of boxed cereals and even full pizzas in an attempt to make use of all the money left on their account.

Of the $11 million students are expected to spend on meal plans this fiscal year, $2 million are expected to be unused, said Brien Martin, associate director of business affairs for Student Life. This equates to roughly 18.2 percent of unused meal-plan money.

Leftover money common

Megan Armstrong, a freshman pre-physical education major, said she has about $20 left over every week from her gold meal plan. She always is hungry and eats often, she said, but she mostly buys fresh fruits and vegetables.

“The food I buy is very [inexpensive],” Armstrong said. “I think right now I would benefit from having a smaller meal plan.”

Michael Stang, director of residential operations, said lowering the meal plans is not an option.

“We need to know that we have ‘X’ number of dollars to build the foundation of our dining plan,” Stang said.

Housing and Dining attempts to meet the needs of students in terms of offering a good variety of food and flexible services. The meal plan amounts in place since the 2004-05 school year are required to achieve this, Stang said.

Payroll, food costs highest

Students are expected to spend $11 million on meal plans this fiscal year, which began July 1 and lasts until June 30 next year, Martin said.

Of this amount, $3.8 million is expected to go to cost of food.

“The cost of a food item [in a dining destination] is based on the cost of the product,” said residential dining director Ralph Chaplin. “We try not to alter the costs [for students] throughout a school year.”

$5.1 million goes to dining staff wages and salaries of the 136 full-time staff members and 401 students employed by Residential Dining as of Oct. 16, Martin said.

This leaves approximately $2 million in non-allocated dining dollars.

“The $2 million in unspent meal plan dollars are used to help offset utility and operational costs other than food and wages,” Martin said. “Any amounts remaining after paying these reasonable and customary expenses are then deposited, as per University and Bond Revenue regulations, into reserve accounts. These reserve accounts are then used to pay for new equipment, repairs and renovations to the dining units.”

After the money is placed into reserve accounts, Housing and Dining makes requests for what to do with the money. The requests need to earn approval of Student Affairs. Finance and Facilities then has the final approval for what to do with the money, usually based on what the needs of the university are, Martin said.

Stang had no comment on the $2 million in excess meal plan money.

Residents required to have plan

Every student living in the residence halls must purchase a meal plan for a variety of reasons, Stang said. If only a small percentage of students had a meal plan, the university could not provide full services for everyone. The university also does not want students cooking in their rooms. The dining halls also instill a sense of community in residential hall students, Stang said.

“It’s similar to the notion of Sunday dinner at home with family; our goal is to get people to interact with one another,” he said.

Plans not accepted everywhere

Unfortunately, meal plan dining dollars are not accepted at destinations such as Neptune’s “The Cove” and Stevenson’s “The Corner,” which offer packaged goods and bottled sodas. Cash is not accepted either, only Huskie Bucks.

A state legislature citing “unfair competition” is to blame, Stang said.

“Because our meal plans are prepaid meal plans in nature, it takes away from local businesses, which is the real reason why students can’t use their money in [our] snack shops,” Stang said. “If we offer things here local convenience stores offer, of course students would buy items from us.”

Roll-over a thing of the past

NIU used to have a roll-over function for student meal plans, Stang said.

“It made it difficult for students to budget out their meal plans, and it made it virtually impossible for us to meet student demand for the last three weeks of the semester,” Stang said. SHDS could not meet student demand during this time as students tried to use the rest of their meal plan money all at once, he said.

“I think it’s better for the students [to not have a roll over function] because they are forced to make good use of their meal plans consistently throughout the semester,” Stang said.