A new fee implemented by the information technology department may help faculty stay connected, but some are not excited about the added cost.

The IT department decided to begin charging departments at the university a technology fee. The fee charges each department a certain amount based on the number of full-time staff working for the department and is intended to help standardize communication across campus.

University spokesman Rod Sievers said by centralizing communication mediums such as e-mail, voicemail and phone lines, the IT department hopes to better connect faculty.

He said the funding from each department would also vary depending on its size.

“None of the money will come out of the professor’s pocket, but the funding will be provided by each department’s budget for the services provided by the IT department,” Sievers said.

Although the fee seems beneficial to the university, Gregory Budzban, chair of the department of mathematics, said some professors are worried the costs may deplete department budgets and impact education at the university.

Budzban said he first heard about the fee more than a month ago at a department chair meeting, but was not aware of the cost it would add to his department’s $50,000 yearly budget.

“When we first heard about it, it was said to be $100 per month for full-time staff,” he said. “In our department, there are 35 full-time employees. That would come out to $3,500 a month, and roughly $42,000 a year for the math department.”

Budzban said the $50,000 budget is used to pay student workers at the math department, purchase classroom commodities such as paper and pens and also provides funds for guest speakers. He said if the department paid the IT fee, it would have to cut student programs such as the Early Intervention Program as well as student workers because the budget would not be able to afford them.

“If we have to pay what the bill should be, two of my student workers would have to lose their positions,” he said. “I simply can not run a department as big as mathematics on the budget, and without student workers, we would have to get rid of the E.I.P.”

Carey Krajewski, chair of the zoology department, said the IT department’s fee for next year would almost double the cost of his department’s previous communications budget.

“I don’t have my budget figures with me, but the IT fee for the zoology department is projected to be about $22,000. This is $10,000 more than our previous telecom budget,” he said.

Krajewski said the quality and services provided by the university would also be affected by the fee.

“We have been told to prepare for a two to five percent cut in operating and staff budgets in addition to the IT fee,” he said. “This would require reducing several full-time staff to part time, eliminating all funding for student travel and drastically reducing the amounts available for teaching equipment and supplies.”

Sievers said the fee will have advantages such as regular maintenance of computers, constant upgrades and free telephone lines for each department.

Although the IT department is supposed to improve communications across campus, Budzban said he does not understand the practicality behind the decision to charge departments.

“The technological problems we face are fixed within the math department at a fraction of the cost,” he said. “The only benefit I see with this fee is they replace your laptop every five years, but that comes out of the cost for the IT department, so we would be losing more money than if we just used our current laptops.”

Both Krajewski and Budzban said they realize the importance of having an IT department on campus, but the expenses for this IT service is unrealistic.

“IT services are necessary to the university, but how we pay for them as a campus requires more thought,” Krajewski said.