If the Chancellor's Committee on Student Fees approves the recommendation, the annual student fees for SLS will increase from $4.86 to $6.96 per student -- a figure that accounts for a projected 4 percent inflation rate over the next five years. The total falls short of the legal services' request for $7.11 per student in annual fees, which would give the organization the funds for merit-based raises.
SLS is an incorporated entity of student government that provides free professional legal consultation and workshops to UNC students and student organizations. SLS Director Dottie Bernholz said the proposed increases were needed primarily to compensate inflation's effect on employee salaries and would not be used for excess capital purchases.
"The desk I use is the same desk I've used for 25 years," she told the committee.
"We're not big spenders."
Jason Orndoff, a UNC law student and chairman of the SLS Board of Directors, argued that an extra increase for merit-based raises was in the best interest of the students, who he said benefit greatly from the company's legal assistance and notoriety with local landlords.
"Because of (the legal services') cohesion over such a long period of time, they really have established themselves in the community."
But Student Body President Brad Matthews, a nonvoting member of the Student Fee Audit Committee, said the legal services' budgets, which are written as five-year plans, should receive more critical and regular examination from student government.
"There needs to be some sort of change in the way (SLS) holds itself accountable," he said. "An active requirement and an active check is a lot more responsible to the student body."
Matthews said concern about the issue began during the 1997-98 and 1998-99 school years, when SLS salaries increased by 9 percent -- a greater raise than student government expected -- purely to account for inflation.
