U-PASS Advisory Board Meeting January 8th, 2013 Present: Aaron Lykken Alicia Halberg Celeste Gilaman Greg Behrens Josh Kavanagh Katie Bass Miles Fernandez Sean Wilson Steven Do Zach Nostdal

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Call to order 2:32 Public comment period a. No one present to speak Approval of minutes – Fernandez a. Motion (Sean): So moved. b. Second (Zach): Seconded c. No objections Approval of agenda – Fernandez a. Motion (Sean): So moved. b. Second (Zach): Seconded. c. No objections. Annual report presentation materials – Halberg a. Comment (Alicia): I do communications work at Transportation Services and I have been working with Katie on the format for the annual report. I took some of the materials from the annual report and put them in a Prezi to use for presentations to the ASUW Student Senate and GPSS. I am going to give a run through of the Prezi so that you all can have input into it, and so that you have it to present next week. I am available to help people with Prezi, if need be. First, the presentation starts with why the UPASS was established. There were too many people driving to campus every day. E1 was full on a regular basis. For most of the history of UPASS, students would flash a sticker at bus drivers for their U-PASS. In 2011 ASUW and GPSS passed resolutions to begin the universal program. This was in response to the Student Transportation Taskforce report and survey which indicated that there was student support for a Universal UPASS program. There were three conditions of the Universal program. The price was set at $76 per quarter. Student’s had control over fee increases. Finally, the U-PASS Advisory Board was established to oversees the fee. Next, the Prezi addresses what the Advisory Board is. It

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is composed of six ASUW members, three GPSS members, and advisers. The fee is collected on behalf of students by the administration. Next, the Prezi goes over exemptions. Requests for exemptions was one of the first big issues that the Advisory Board faced. The Board passed a resolution and formalized a no exemptions policy in Feb 2012. This was meant to protect the universal program. Arbitration is also a big issue that is still ongoing. The Advisory Board has been closely following the arbitration. The board passed a resolution in June 2012 requesting the continued collection of the fee by the administration. Next, the presentation covers the benefits available to U-PASS members: unlimited bus rides on six local transit agencies. Other benefits such as the merchant discount program, NightRide, Vanpool fare subsidy, Zipcar discounts, ride matching using Zimride. Then, the presentation covers looking forward for what is going to be coming. Question (Josh): Can we change the words “new fee” to “updated fee” to more accurately represent the fee update process? Comment (Alicia): Yes. Comment (Sean): I think that it is really good. I think that we need to make it clear in our presentations that we won’t necessarily have to raise the fee. That it could move in any direction, including decreasing. Comment (Josh): We could use the language “any changes to the fee”. Comment (Alicia): No problem. Are there any other changes that you would like to make? Comment (Aaron): One thing that I thought would be powerful was a consideration of what the U-PASS used to cost and that it is now cheaper because of our efforts. I think that that is really import for people to understand. Question (Sean): Do we have the statistic for what percentage of people use their U-PASS? i. Comment (Josh): I know that we ran it for the UAW population. But I don’t think that we’ve ever run it for the whole U-PASS population. ii. Comment (Celeste): No, we haven’t because it isn’t a standard report. It has to be specifically requested and it’s quite a process. iii. Comment (Josh): We do have statistics on ridership on King County Metro. iv. Comment (Celeste): Student ridership on King County Metro was up 11% between October 2012 and October 2012. Question (Alicia): So are these things you want to see added to the presentation or are these just talking points? i. Comment (Sean): Maybe just adding some bullet points about the positive effects. ii. Comment (Alicia): I think that a logical place would be after we discuss the STT.

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j. Comment (Aaron): I have had way too many conversations with students that really don’t understand how much it costs to get an unlimited ORCA card, or an employer card. i. Comment (Josh): So that would mean listing the breakeven point, the old cost, and the price for the most equivalent retail pass, which is something astronomical like $500. ii. Comment (Sean): I think that that would be really strong, and it would indicate why we made these decisions. k. Comment (Alicia): I also think we could emphasize more that a majority of students that didn’t have U-PASS supported the proposal for a universal program. l. Comment (Katie): So, how many copies of the annual report do you want to take with you to the presentations? i. Comment (Sean): ASUW Senate is trying our best to go paperless, so we don’t usually bring hard copies. If you could just send us the PDF, that would be great. ii. Comment (Aaron): That is more or less the same for us. Arbitration – Kavanagh a. Comment (Josh): There was a ruling on the University’s motion. I sent that out to the email list. The two parties are theoretically talking to each other to come to some sort of agreement for implementation. If we were to consider where it could go from here if you are looking at the tea leaves. It could all be resolved just like the arbitration process has laid out and there will be some sort of settlement with UAW. Or this could always end up in court. The best sense that I have of it is that this is an unknown right now and it is going to remain an unknown for some time. That takes us to the next question, which is, if the University has to refund some portion of dollars, whatever that portion is, what is the source of funds for that going to be? I stand firmly in the belief that the program should be held harmless, that this is an employment issue. But I don’t get to make the decision. The assumption is that one way or another the administration will be expecting the U-PASS program to absorb the cost of the decision in one way or another. There are mechanisms through which the University could technically pay that through University dollars without having to pay it with student funds. The effect would be the same. Right now I think it’s a waiting game. b. Question (Sean): What exactly, percentage wise, is the amount that the University provides as a subsidy for the program? i. Comment (Josh): Six and half million dollars a year. It is more than sufficient to cover the costs of the arbitration, and ding the program. c. Question (Miles): Exactly how much would be refunded? i. Comment (Josh): There are a couple different numbers that one could work with here. There is the position that the University would come down on which is that we shouldn’t reimburse anyone that used the U-PASS. That would be only about 15 % of the

50%+ ASE population would get fees returned. The other end of the spectrum is that all 50%+ ASEs should have their fees returned. The delta on those numbers is north of a million dollars. By the end of this academic year, there could be a two and a half million dollar liability. That is a risk factor that we will need to wrestle with when we decide what the fee recommendation should be. d. Question (Sean): That was my next question. If we were to read the tea leaves and if we weren’t worried about ridership data, and if we weren’t thinking about the arbitration, if we wanted to build in a risk fund, what would that look like? i. Comment (Josh): It’s difficult to say in that we are just starting to be able to look at fall quarter ridership data. That data suggests that there has been a shift in ridership patterns from last year’s data. This changes my initial enthusiasm about being able to pull this off without raising the fee. If we were to do a one year contract, there are two different things that we need to consider that could change the costs. One is the arbitration; two is the changing rate of fares from the agencies. Right now we are carrying a fund balance in the program that offsets at least some of that risk. It was only meant to address fare changes. That fund is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million. If at the extreme the arbitration was $2 million, then that means that there is only about a $ 1 million cushion for fare changes. That isn’t a huge margin on $18 million in transactions in fares. We will need to consider what is likely to change and how that will be absorbed. e. Comment (Sean): So, if we are going to increase the fee, it needs to be increased by both ASUW and GPSS. It sounds like it very well might not be the case that we do have to raise it. But, if we do, both have to approve it, which means it needs to be vetted by student opinion. Time wise, looking backwards, when are we going to know these things so that we make sure we have enough time. f. Comment (Josh): Think of it this way, in round numbers a dollar increased on the U-PASS is somewhere in the realm of $150,000 a year in the budget. We aren’t talking about one dollar increases, though. If we were only talking about a small risk, I will suggest that the board take that risk. But if we need to raise it more to protect against risk, then it will need to be sent out for student approval. Our job as advisors is to provide the best reading of the tea leaves that we can. I am not ready to go to the assumption that we need to raise the fee. I will also counsel this board to pay attention to the political climate, particularly when there is some uneasy feelings around the arbitration. i. Comment (Sean): I agree. Feasibly, if there is some sort of small increase of a couple dollars, feasibly, that could probably roll though. But if it going to be more than that, we are going to need more time to gather student opinion.

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g. Comment (Josh): I think that what we will find, we might not be able to manage our risk at that level, but we will tolerate it for program sustainability. h. Comment (Miles): Today there was a Daily article indicating that there might not be any increase in tuition at all, and students are very happy about that. If we aren’t going to raise tuition, I don’t want to increase the U-PASS either. i. Comment (Sean): From a risk standpoint, then I think that it is more tolerable for students to raise the fee if we explain the risk scenarios. i. Comment (Miles): I disagree. I think that if we explain it that way, including the cost of risk, I think it will confuse people more. Drawing the different funding sources into the discussion is just going to muddy it more. The more confused people are, the more likely they are to say no, especially with our senate where most members are pretty young. j. Comment (Josh): The one glimmer of hope is that in the UAW motion, which has not been addressed to my understanding; they proposed that 15% of the U-PASS budget be made available for rebates. If they don’t try to reach beyond that, we are in a much better position as a program. Website update – Wilson a. Comment (Sean): I talked to the person who does the upkeep for the SAF website. His name is Remy. What it sounds like from them is that ASUW tech is pretty stretched right now. Feasibly, this is something they could maintain in the future, but they are not looking to set it up. It is just a word press with theming. I don’t know the exact division of labor for the transition. It might be something that Evan and the Board need to discuss about how we are going to address it and direct ASUW tech to spend their time. b. Question (Josh): Is it a question of funding or effort? i. Comment (Sean): It is funding for effort. ASUW tech is just three people and they do everything as far as tech goes for the organization. If it was just as simple as changing links on the SAF website, they could do that. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. c. Comment (Celeste): I think that what I was hearing in previous conversations is that the look and feel of SAF and is a desirable model. I don’t think that a lot of changes would be needed for that. As far as resources go, I think that Katie and others could do that. We just need appropriate permissions, and pathways. d. Comment (Sean): Okay, it might be as simple as making printouts and telling them what we want to change. But, it might not be that simple. e. Comment (Josh): Maybe what we need is training. i. Comment (Sean): They can probably do that, word press is pretty easy, as far as I understand. f. Question (Sean): Do we want to post the annual report to UW U-PASS Facebook page?

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g. Yes. h. Question (Greg): Is there anything that we want to include in the new site that isn’t currently on the site? i. Comment (Josh): There are a number of things that are currently burried in the minutes that I think could be brought to be more surface level. ii. Comment (Sean): Perhaps projects, as well as data, NightRide info as a tab, perhaps a tab for transit data. i. Question (Zach): How did the original cooperation with Zipcar come about? j. Comment (Josh): It goes way, way back. We were the original Flexcar University; that was before they were Zipcar. k. Question (Celeste): What would the next steps on the websites be? i. Katie, Sean, Miles, and Greg are going to meet as soon as we can about the website and next steps. Agenda setting – Bass a. Question (Katie): Does anyone here have anything for future agendas? i. Comment (Josh): Our next meeting is one where we should bring a fee proposal. ii. Comment (Miles): There should also be a presentation debrief. b. Comment (Aaron): I am interested for the future in looking at other services that U-PASS offers, and looking at what they do. It was great to have NightRide in. I would like to see more of those kinds of presentations and discussions. c. Comment (Josh): So, if we look at the other categories of the U-PASS benefits- rideshare, and maybe bring Sara to visit a month or so out. Also, as we explore the relationship with Car2Go we can talk about car sharing also. d. Comment (Steven): I think that we should be very clear in the presentations about the benefits so that people know all about what they get so they will want to protect it. e. Comment (Sean): Also, I would like to talk about how students and the UPASS impact the transit agencies. Adjournment 3:19 pm