Though the Talley Student Center fee is the “800-lb gorilla in the room,” Student Body President Jim Ceresnak said the fee review committee is taking a “business-as-usual” approach to its charge and won’t sacrifice the validity of other fees while the details of the Rally4Talley fee are determined.

“I think it’s important that we go through the fee process fully,” Ceresnak said. “We’re going through the process as we would any other year.”

Ceresnak said fee requests are lower than in the past and that the committee would evaluate the merits of every fee.

But the fee-proposal process will be different this year, according to Student Senate President Kelli Rogers who said instead of submitting videos, proposals will be made in person and videotaped. The recording will allow proposal videos to be posted online for students to watch.

Rogers said during Friday’s meeting the committee evaluated each department closely before even discussing fee increases.

“We went over the history of all the fees, even if they weren’t requesting an increase,” Rogers said. “We saw how much on reserve each department had to make sure they weren’t routinely getting more money they deserve.”

Rogers said the initial look at the fees was mostly on a preliminary basis, and that many of the fees would change before they are finalized for consideration.

Rogers said the fees as they were drawn up would result in a 3.47 percent fee increase, but said it didn’t include any numbers on a Talley fee. She said the committee will work hard to ensure no fees are looked over because of the Talley fee combined with the 6.5 percent fee increase cap.

“Any increase in student fees affects students significantly,” Rogers said. “The Talley fee we know is going to be a significant fee. No matter what number is proposed, it’s going to be a high fee.”

Rogers said the committee won’t let the Talley fee nullify the importance of fee increases that could benefit students in the short run, since many won’t benefit from the center during their undergraduate careers.

“We don’t want to deny students a service in exchange for a Talley Student Center fee that they won’t see for years down the road,” Rogers said. “We want to make sure to keep this as equal a process as possible, especially for students who will graduate before the student center. Talley is a great legacy, but we want to make sure they don’t lose anything along the way.”