The Illinois Student Senate passed a resolution at its meeting Wednesday night petitioning a change in the student code that would subject the Illini Media Company student-initiated fee to be reviewed every two years. All other student-initiated fees are subject to review every four years.

The petition will now go to the academic senate’s Conference on Conduct Governance and the Office of the Chancellor.

Debate among senators arose concerning the specifics of the renewal of the $1.85-per-semester fee. The fee was originally $3 per semester, but on Oct. 31, the Student Fee Advisory Committee recommended to Chancellor Phyllis Wise that the fee be reduced.

Vita Wu, committee member and senior in AHS, said the recommendation came as a consensus of the committee.

Edward Slazinik, associate vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said that they didn’t feel there was a need for the $3 fee.

“They (SFAC) didn’t feel like $3 was appropriate, they felt like Illini Media needed to make some changes in their business plan,” said Slazinik. “Some suggestions was reducing the number of days they published, the number of copies they published, trying to transition to a digital format.”

Senator Damani Bolden, junior in ACES, questioned during the meeting why the Illini Media Company student fee should be subject to review biennially, while other fees have a longer time frame.

Sponsor Jim Maskeri, senior in LAS, noted that the Illini Media Company, The Daily Illini’s parent company, is a private entity not directly affiliated with the University.

Student-initiated fees include the Collegiate Readership and Krannert fees, as well as seven others. These student-initiated fees are directly influenced by the University, Maskeri said.

“This is a subsidy for a private company,” Maskeri said. “I think that because we are giving our money to an outside company, we need to hold them to a different standard than we would hold Krannert or (the) Sustainable Campus Environmental Fee.”

Maskeri added that more frequent renewal of the fee is important in the absence of direct input from students in Illini Media Company’s spending.

Liz can be reached at [email protected].

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Vita Wu could not disclose the reasoning behind the Student Fee Advisory Committee’s recommendation. Edward Slazinik, associate vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said the Student Fee Advisory Committee did not feel like the $3 fee was appropriate. “They felt like Illini Media needed to make some changes in their business plan,” Slazinik said. Some suggested changes included reducing the number of days and copies they published and trying to transition to a digital format, he said. The Daily Illini regrets the error.