Although the “War on Parking” series was originally intended to be two parts, it is necessary to correct some misinformation in the top story last week. After The Current was released last week, James Krueger, vice chancellor for Managerial and Technological Services, and Curt Coonrod, vice provost for Student Affairs, noticed that Leo Gutierrez’s statements about the parking prices were incorrect. Gutierrez is the manager of Parking Operations, and he stated that Parking and Transportation does not set the price of parking at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. This is true. However, it is not the student curator who sets the prices, as Gutierrez said, according to Coonrod and Krueger.
“The parking fees are set by the chancellor; the student curator has nothing to do with this,” Krueger said.
After correcting this, Krueger also took the time to respond to students’ concerns about the price of parking being too high.
“We understand that the student fee is high. I’m not going to discount that,” Krueger said.
Krueger explained that Parking and Transportation, like the Millennium Student Center or Residential Life, operates as an auxiliary enterprise.
Parking and Transportation does not set out to make a profit—though Kreuger said it would not be inappropriate to do so—but instead sets an ultimate goal to “break even.”
According to Krueger, it can be more difficult to break even for the UM-St. Louis campus than for other campuses.
“For our campus, [breaking even] is somewhat more challenging because we own our own roads,” Krueger said.
Essentially, the money made from parking passes and tickets is used to maintain and build garages, surface parking lots and roads. More specifically, Krueger said that 40 percent of their revenue goes to pay for the most recent three “big garages.”
“Probably the largest expense in Parking and Transportation is what’s called ‘debt service’ on the bonds on the three big garages,” Krueger said. “When we built those three garages, we issued 30-year bonds. So over time, parking fees had to increase as we added each of those garages to help pay for the debt services on the garages.”
Krueger was not the only one who had something to say about parking. Coonrod commented on the idea of employing a flat parking rate at UM-St. Louis instead of basing the price off credit hours.
“With a flat rate, some might be helped, and a lot might be hurt,” Coonrod said. “If you have a flat rate of, let’s say, 200 dollars, and someone’s taking 3 credit hours, a flat rate does not help them. Our average credit hour load is about 11 credit hours. If we were to do a flat rate fee, what would you use to determine that flat rate? If you use the average, there are students who would end up paying a lot more.”
According to Coonrod, it is doubtful that UM-St. Louis will charge a flat rate for parking any time soon, and according to Krueger, the parking fee itself ($18 per credit hour) probably will not be decreased any time soon either.
And until something changes, The Current is not doing any more reporting on parking.
“The parking fees are set by the chancellor; the student curator has nothing to do with this,” Krueger said.
After correcting this, Krueger also took the time to respond to students’ concerns about the price of parking being too high.
“We understand that the student fee is high. I’m not going to discount that,” Krueger said.
Krueger explained that Parking and Transportation, like the Millennium Student Center or Residential Life, operates as an auxiliary enterprise.
Parking and Transportation does not set out to make a profit—though Kreuger said it would not be inappropriate to do so—but instead sets an ultimate goal to “break even.”
According to Krueger, it can be more difficult to break even for the UM-St. Louis campus than for other campuses.
“For our campus, [breaking even] is somewhat more challenging because we own our own roads,” Krueger said.
Essentially, the money made from parking passes and tickets is used to maintain and build garages, surface parking lots and roads. More specifically, Krueger said that 40 percent of their revenue goes to pay for the most recent three “big garages.”
“Probably the largest expense in Parking and Transportation is what’s called ‘debt service’ on the bonds on the three big garages,” Krueger said. “When we built those three garages, we issued 30-year bonds. So over time, parking fees had to increase as we added each of those garages to help pay for the debt services on the garages.”
Krueger was not the only one who had something to say about parking. Coonrod commented on the idea of employing a flat parking rate at UM-St. Louis instead of basing the price off credit hours.
“With a flat rate, some might be helped, and a lot might be hurt,” Coonrod said. “If you have a flat rate of, let’s say, 200 dollars, and someone’s taking 3 credit hours, a flat rate does not help them. Our average credit hour load is about 11 credit hours. If we were to do a flat rate fee, what would you use to determine that flat rate? If you use the average, there are students who would end up paying a lot more.”
According to Coonrod, it is doubtful that UM-St. Louis will charge a flat rate for parking any time soon, and according to Krueger, the parking fee itself ($18 per credit hour) probably will not be decreased any time soon either.
And until something changes, The Current is not doing any more reporting on parking.
