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Meeting at Old Queens
June 29 1998

Attending:

• Darrell Carrington, Parking Committee Chair
• Ed Kozack, Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary Services
• Charles Olszewski, Parking Committee co-Chair
• Steve Otzenberger, President's Office Delegate
• Robert Spear, Director of Parking & Transportation

Mr. Carrington provided a brief agenda for the discussion. Following that agenda, he then identified the key point of the Assembly's motion re: parking fees, namely, the request that parking fees be abolished for A/P/S staff.

Mr. Kozack described the history of the graduated parking fee system at Rutgers. He first stated that the parking system was not fully an auxiliary service in the same way that Housing and Dining Services were. However, he noted that the university and the State of New Jersey have an "understanding" that no State-appropriated funds would be used for parking facilities or services. He noted that, up until the mid-1970s, the university charged all members of the community a flat $20 per year parking fee. The move was then made to a fee system based on .01% of annual salary.

About five years ago, the university went to a graduated-rate fee system. Under this, the present system, the percentage of salary charged for parking increases as the employee's salary increases.

The graduated-fee structure is rooted in certain factors:

• Union contract provisions;
• Simplicity of administration
• Required income from parking from each constituency

Despite this, the university could dispense with parking fees. However, the differential would have to be made up out of other components of the budget, and could only be taken from those areas which were not paid from State appropriations (see above). The university bases its charge decision on its need to maintain service levels elsewhere. A component of the parking issue was the allocation of premium parking space first to faculty and staff, with students receiving less-favored parking locations. This, Mr. Spear pointed out, is directly contrary to the practice of large retailers, who reserve premium parking for customers and constrain their employees to park in less-favorable locations.

Mr. Kozack mentioned that, since all other parking fees for employees are locked in by bargaining-unit contracts, and are subject to negotiation in the bargaining process, any elimination of the graduated-fee structure for A/P/S employees would affect only that group. Further, the same amount of revenue would have to be realized from the group under any alternative fee structure. For these reasons, eliminating the graduated parking fee for A/P/S employees would cause at least one-half of the group to pay a higher parking fee than at present.

Kozack also remarked that an extraordinarily economical parking rate might be possible for those willing to use a satellite parking arrangement and be bussed to their workplace, providing that this significantly reduced the demand for close-by parking in crowded venues. Spear pointed out that when a particular group vacated existing high-demand lots, however, others typically filled in the spaces vacated within a short time due to excess demand on those lots. He further noted that during non-class periods such as Winter break and Summer Session, bus service is greatly reduced, thus reducing the viability of satellite lot use.

Spear noted that some of the problem of parking availability is being addressed by establishing three new parking enforcement lines in New Brunswick starting in September. He acknowledged the problem of students parking illegally in faculty/staff lots, but expressed unwillingness to consider immediate towing (on first offense) as an enforcement strategy.

Respectfully submitted

Charles R. Olszewski
co-Chair
ad hoc Parking Committee
June 29, 1998