Hats off to the person or persons who decided to raise the parking sticker fee a modest 42.85 percent. Just when we thought that perhaps the budgetary shuffling and cutbacks that have been disrupting the working atmosphere here at NIU might have ended (at least temporarily), along comes yet another mind-boggling administrative feat of daring-do: “How much can they stand? I don’t know, but let’s raise whatever we can and see!” The fact that we pay less than they do at U of I (see Northern Today, June 21, 1993) didn’t really do much to cheer me up, but thanks for the statistics (meaningful as always)!

This is especially good timing, what with the construction and all, and sure to make the majority of the faculty and staff feel a certain special something for the Parking division, various administrative departments, etc., and might even have the effect of (perish the thought) people agreeing on something.

I hope that whatever raise we might get (perhaps a whopping 3 percent if the rest of the staff and I could be so lucky) will, after I attempt to cover the increased taxes that everyone seems to need so desperately to cover their mistakes and supposed needs, leave me enough to help keep the Parking division afloat, as they are obviously in dire straits to need such an increase. I trust that this money will be put to good use, and it would be nice to know what that use might be. If it is to cover the day-to-day operations of the Division, then perhaps we should ask to see the credentials of the financial wizard that waited so long to sound the alarm that necessitates such a gross increase in the expenditure that, in my mind at least, should not even exist in the first place. But then, the system seems to be full of such “justifiable” expenditures, and any attempt to cut any of them out would be futile. Or would it?

Dave Kolars

Central Stores