Our request:

Students pay a mandatory $3 fee each semester to support The State Hornet, a student-run news organization serving the Sacramento State community.

The State Hornet Publication Board, a group of students, journalism professors and university administrators, oversees the operation and budget of The State Hornet. The board seeks to clarify the language setting out how the $3 student fee can be used. (To be clear, the board is not seeking a fee increase.)

The current fee language allows the board to use it for student employment/compensation, scholarships, space rental expenditures and publishing costs. Those expenses comprise about two-thirds of The State Hornet’s annual budget.

Other essential expenses include replacing outdated or broken equipment; purchasing libel insurance; buying office supplies; paying administrative fees for financial and accounting services and sending students to training conferences. In the past, the board used advertising revenue to cover these expenses but that revenue source largely does not exist today, an issue facing most news outlets.

There is ambiguity as to whether these expenses fit the language underlying our student fee. As such, we propose changing the language of our student fee justification to the following:

“The fees can be used for operation of the newspaper, including but not limited to, student employment/compensation, scholarships, space rental expenditures, publishing costs and other necessary operating costs deemed appropriate by the State Hornet Publication Board.”