Bijeta Lamichhane
News Editor
In a meeting held by Campus Council (CC) on Nov. 14, the Budget Committee addressed the issue of increase in the price of renting cars through Enterprise, specifically pertaining to student organizations that often use the service for their programs. Since organizations were provided with budgets based on last year’s pricing, concerns have been raised regarding their ability to ac- cess the service due to such an increase in price.
“As of Oct. 19, 2019, all rental car classes have increased rates,” explained Sheila Wilson, the associate vice president for Auxiliary Operations Procurment/Purchasing. “However, the minivan class was the largest increase and the most used by student organizations. The daily rate for a minivan has increased from approximately $12.00 per day to $65.75.”
According to Wilson, the price has not increased this significantly since 2012. “The price of renting vehicles had remained steady over the past eight years but has recently increased,” she said. “The College entered into an agreement with the Inter-University Council Purchasing Group of Ohio (IUC-PG), which is a purchasing consortium comprised of the purchasing officers of the state institutions of higher education effective July 2012. The Enterprise vehicle rental rates included in this agreement have held steady for the last seven years; however, effective Oct. 19, the consortium updated its rental car program and increased rates that have impacted The College of Wooster, as well as many other schools in the state of Ohio.” She further explained that without IUC-PG, the College would see even higher vehicle rates.
Wilson also mentioned that to address this issue,the Budget Committee is working on a plan to support student organizations budgeted for transportation this academic year, and that the budget requests for the next academic year will be based on the Oct. 19, rental car rates.
Matt Mayes ’20, an at-large representative for CC, confirmed that the Budget Committee is working to find a solution. “We are currently discussing options for how to make sure student organizations aren’t negatively impacted by the changes for the rest of the academic year.” Mayes assured. “Right now, student organizations do not need to worry and should not see any change in their access to Enterprise vans that were approved in their budget. In our next Campus Council meeting, we will bring up some of the specific policy ideas we have for how to subsidize the increased costs for the rest of this year. We already have some ideas but want to bring them to the other representatives before we move forward on anything.”
Additionally, for the general student body, Wilson encouraged the use of CarShare, a membership program introduced by Enterprise that enablesindividualstorentvehicles at a cheaper rate. “The CarShare program is a wonderful opportunity to allow students to rent a car at all hours,” she said. “At the cost of $8.00 per hour, many students can book the car and travel together [to save more money]. CarShare is such a growing program, we are hoping to add additional vehicles to the pool of cars available. Currently, Enterprise is working on the pos- sibility of adding a minivan to our CarShare fleet.”