Tuition surcharges should help ease the University’s budget crisis for the next few years, but their impact on the Arizona Legislature could be more complex, officials said.

ASU is asking the Arizona Board of Regents for an “economic recovery surcharge” of $600 per student per semester in order to replace money stripped from this year’s budget.

The money would fill budgets that have already been cut in order to avoid further layoffs or program eliminations, said Rich Stanley, University planner. They would also show that the University recognizes the severity of the financial crisis, while placing pressure on the Legislature to reverse cuts as quickly as possible, he said.

“We’re saying, ‘This is only in place until you’re in a position … that you can restore funding to us,” he said. “That puts a substantial amount of pressure on the Legislature.”

Constituents would then hold their legislators accountable for the surcharge by telling them, “You could make it go away if you could come up with the money,” Stanley said.

The chances of the Legislature having that money are very low for the next two or three years, he said, so the University needs the surcharge for now.

University officials originally discussed including school-specific program fees in the tuition-surcharge proposal, but money from those fees was grouped into the surcharge when regents asked for simple proposals from university presidents.

This way, Stanley said, the surcharge money can be retracted altogether when the budget recovers, instead of having more permanent program fees as well.

“If it’s all in a single number, it will be more straightforward,” he said. “For the most part, it’s down to just a surcharge.”

The University also proposed a health-services fee of $40 per semester, which Stanley said would be separate from the surcharge because it is targeted and long-term.

Additionally, the University will direct between 20 and 25 percent of tuition revenue to financial aid, which is well above the ABOR requirement of 17 percent.

But student Regent David Martinez III said the surcharges put the state’s responsibility on students.

“I do not think that students should have to bail out the universities because of a tremendous lack of investment by the state,” he said.

When faced with a severe budget deficit, the first thing Arizona legislators turned to was financial aid, targeting the Arizona Financial Aid Trust Fund, Martinez said.

Martinez also said discussing a surcharge at this time goes against ABOR policy.

“We set tuition and fees in December, and they’ve already been set,” he said.

Martinez said going against traditional policy and discussing tuition and fees in the middle of the year sets up a dangerous precedent for future action.

“I’m really afraid of the road we’re going down in essentially matching state cuts [with surcharges],” he said. “I feel like this is exactly what the legislative leadership wants.”

Reach the reporter at adam.sneed@asu.edu.