The final solution that the DRS can use is to expand the Gregory Gym and install more equipment. Although it will be the most difficult goal to achieve, it is not impossible. First, the idea for expansion has to be delivered to the student government in UT. When the student government approves the feasibility of the idea, they will have a referendum. More than 51% of the affirmative vote has to approve the proposal by the student body. After that, the proposal will go to the administration office in UT; from there they will send it to the Board of Regents, the governing body for the state institutions, and then return it back to UT. When the proposal is finally approved, the DRS will hire a contractor and examine the total cost. After all of the studies are done, the construction will begin. The complete process of approval will take about six months to one year, and the project can be done within two years.
For the funding, in order to collect money, a student pays about $110 to the DRS, $40 for the Rec Center and $70 for the Gregory each year. The total amount of money the DRS will generate from the students in one year is approximately $5.72 million. However, all of this money pays to the bond for both Rec Center and the Gregory. Each building has a 20-year bond to pay individually every year. The collected money will only pay for the bond, and once the bond is paid off, the charge from the students will immediately stop. For the Rec Center, the bond will be paid off in 2011, and for the Gregory, it will be in 2017.
Despite of that, there is another way to collect money. Each year a students has to pay a fee called ¡§the required students services fee¡¨ and among this fee, about $33 goes to the DRS. The total amount of money from this fee each year would be $1.716 million. If we add the money paid by the staffs ($104 per person / year) and other people ($450 per person / year), the total income will increase to $2.658 million. Subtracting this amount from the operation fee, the DRS will generate $658,000 per year toward its reserves. It costs approximately $12 million to build another floor above the Gregory Gym and $2000 to purchase one more machine such as the stair stepper, a popular machine that many people have to wait in order to use most of the time. The total cost to build the floor and install 50 more machines would be $12.1 million. Although the project can only be paid through bonds, $658,000 will increase the funding gradually, and in the end it will help to reduce the burden of bonds. The DRS have other reserves, the amount of money can only be used to maintain the building and replace the damaged equipments because they only come from the convenient store and the rental of the lockers. (All of the information was collected from Rhonda Cox, an assistant director in the DRS with 10 years of experience, Allison Hansen, the assistant director, and Julie Ramirez, the administrative assistant)