You asked for information on UConnPIRG, the UConn chapter of the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG). You wanted to know (1) the group's history at UConn, (2) how many students waive the UConnPIRG fee, (3) how much money the group receives from student fees each year, (4) how it spends the money, and (5) whether it has a reserve fund. You also want to know whether the legislature could eliminate the PIRG fee through legislation.

The UConnPIRGs, located at UConn's Storrs and Greater Hartford campuses, are local chapters of ConnPIRG, an independent statewide student organization. Unlike other student activity fee funded organizations at UConn, students may elect to waive the $5 UConnPIRG fee on their student fee bill by selecting a checkbox. According to UConn's Government Relations Office, about 15% of students waived the fee in FY 09. The waiver rate was higher this past fall (about 20%). UConn provided us with FY 09-11 budget forms for both chapters, which indicate that the two chapters projected to collect $134,000 combined in student fees for FY 09. At the start of FY 09, the Storrs chapter had a fund balance (reserve fund) of $68,248, while Hartford's was $26,401.

The largest single expenditure for both chapters is non-student wages. The FY 09 budgets included $92,706 in wages to support (1) a campus organizer, who helps the groups run campaigns, manages interns, runs leadership development classes, and serves as a general resource for the students, and (2) staff at the state and national levels. UConn PIRG supports national and local PIRG campaigns, including reducing global warming pollution, ending credit card abuses, increasing young voter turnout, and reforming healthcare. This past year, the group's activities included helping students register to vote, organizing a global warming town hall meeting, and collecting petitions in support of fair credit card marketing principles.

State law authorizes the boards of trustees for each of the state's higher education constituent units to set tuition and fees at their respective institutions, subject to the Board of Governors of Higher Education's statewide tuition and student fee policies (CGS §§ 10a-6,
-77, -99, and -105). If the legislature wants to alter the manner in which the institutions set student fees, it could consider amending these statutes. The constitutionality of legislation to eliminate a specific student fee or organization, or type of organization, is unclear.

ConnPIRG is an independent statewide student organization with local chapters at UConn's Storrs and Hartford campuses and Trinity College. (The U.S. PIRG is the federation of state PIRGs.) None of the state's other public colleges or universities have PIRG chapters. The PIRG fee became part of the student fee bill in 1973 when students first voted to form and fund a chapter (“Editorial – PIRG Question Misleading,” The Daily Campus, April 16, 2003). According to UConn's Division of Student Affairs, the UConnPIRG Hartford chapter has been in existence for about 20 years. We have attached a copy of a 2003 Daily Campus article that further describes the organization's structure and activities.

UConnPIRG is among several student activity fee funded organizations at UConn, including the undergraduate and graduate student government groups and the student newspaper, yearbook, and television and radio stations. Unlike the other organizations, students may elect to waive the $5 UConnPIRG fee on their student fee bill by

selecting a checkbox. This funding mechanism, referred to as a “negative check-off” system, is commonplace among student PIRGs. According to UConn's Government Relations Office, about 15% of students waived the PIRG fee in FY 09. The waiver rate was higher this past fall (about 20%).

Every three years, undergraduate students vote in a campus wide referendum to reaffirm UConnPIRG's status as a student organization and maintain the existing funding mechanism. In 2009, 69% (2,835) of the 4,099 students voted in favor of maintaining the group's status. Subsequently, UConn's Student Activity and Service Fee Advisory Committee, which annually reviews and makes recommendations on student fees, recommended in May 2009 that the PIRG fee continue to be assessed at a rate of $5 per semester and that students retain the option of waiving the fee.

Table 1 shows revenues and expenditures for both the Storrs and Hartford UConnPIRG chapters, provided by UConn's Government Relations Office. It includes FY 08 actual amounts for the Storrs chapter and FY 09 budgeted amounts for Storrs and Hartford.

Both chapters rely primarily on student fee revenue. The budgets for the two chapters projected collecting $134,000 combined in student fees for FY 09. The FY 08 figures for the Storrs chapter also show an additional $2,046 in revenues for donations, merchandise sales, and interest.

The largest single expenditure for both chapters is non-student wages. The FY 09 budgets included $92,706 in wages ($65,000 for Storrs and $27,706 for Hartford). These funds are used in part to employ a campus organizer who helps the groups run campaigns, manages interns, runs leadership development classes, and serves as a general resource for the students. The campus organizer, who is not a state employee, provides support at both the campus and state level. The wage expenditures are also used to support (1) state level positions, including a New England field organizer, PIRG organizing director, and ConnPIRG director and (2) lawyers, graphic designers, online organizers, and administrators at the national level.

At the start of FY 09, the Storrs chapter had a fund balance (reserve fund) of $68,248, while Hartford's was $26,401. The Storrs chapter budgeted $700 of its reserves to cover its FY 09 expenses, while Hartford's budget reduces its fund balance by $24,698, to $1,704.

Source: Student Fee Advisory Committee, Activity Fee Budget Update Form FY 09-11

UConnPIRG supports national and local PIRG campaigns. These include reducing global warming pollution, ending credit card abuses, increasing young voter turnout, reforming health care, ending hunger and homelessness, advocating for affordable textbooks, and decreasing student debt. According to ConnPIRG's website, UConnPIRG's accomplishments for the past year included:

1. helping 3,600 students register to vote;

2. organizing 60 volunteers to participate in the national Hunger Cleanup, a day of community service and fundraising, which raised funds for the No Freeze Shelter in Willimantic and the Tri Town Shelter in Vernon;

3. collecting petitions, making phone calls, and meeting with Senator Dodd to further its campaign to make higher education affordable;

4. collecting over 1,000 petitions and organizing a global warming town hall meeting with Congressman Courtney to show support for global warming legislation;

5. sending 40 students to Powershift '09, a global warming student conference in Washington, D.C.;

6. collecting petitions in support of fair credit card marketing principles and provided students with information on the best ways to use credit cards; and

7. collecting signatures from over 20 UConn professors in support of using open textbooks in their classes.

State law authorizes the boards of trustees for each of the state's higher education constituent units to set tuition and fees at their respective institutions, subject to the Board of Governors of Higher Education's statewide tuition and student fee policies (CGS § 10a-6, -77, -99, and -105). If the legislature wants to alter the manner in which the institutions set student fees, it could consider amending these statutes.

The constitutionality of legislation to eliminate a specific student fee or organization, or type of organization, is unclear. We did not find any cases directly on point. However, the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings are binding on Connecticut) have both considered challenges to public universities requiring student fees. These rulings held that universities charging students a fee to fund programs to facilitate extracurricular student speech must be “viewpoint neutral” (not preferring some viewpoints over others) in allocating funding support for student organizations. Although these rulings applied to universities requiring a fee, courts may apply the same “viewpoint neutrality” standard in determining whether prohibiting a certain student fee violated students' First Amendment rights.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment permits a public university to charge its students a mandatory activity fee to fund a program to facilitate extracurricular student speech if the program was “viewpoint neutral” in the allocation of funding support to student organizations (Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, et. Al., 529 U.S. 217). Several students at the University of Wisconsin had filed suit against the university's board of regents alleging that its practice of charging students a mandatory, nonrefundable student activity fee violated their First Amendment rights of free speech and free association. The students alleged that the university had to grant objecting students the choice not to fund those organizations that engaged in political and ideological speech which was offensive to the objectors' personal beliefs.

The Court ruled that the university's viewpoint neutrality requirement was generally sufficient to protect the rights of objecting students. In other words, when a university requires its students to pay fees to support the extracurricular speech of other students, it may not prefer some viewpoints to others. It held that a public university may decide that the interests of its students are better protected by a type of optional or refund system but it declined to impose that type of system as a constitutional requirement. (This is similar to the negative check-off system at UConn.) The Court also implied that a student referendum as a method of funding or defunding a student organization violates the viewpoint neutrality requirement.

In 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a student referendum system used by the State University of New York at Albany to award student fee funds to some groups, including NYPIRG, failed to provide viewpoint neutrality protections (Amidon v. Student Association of the State University of New York at Albany, 508 F.3d 94). But in this case, as in the case at the University of Wisconsin, students were not offered the option of waiving the PIRG fee.

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