By Steve Babcock

The Student Government Association’s referendum committee announced Thursday that the referendum on raising the Student Activites Fee would be extended another week, making the new ending date for the referendum March 6.

The referendum, which would raise the Student Activites Fee from its current level of $17 a quarter to $100 for the entire year, has already reached the amount of votes from students needed to make its results official, also know as a quorom.

Sam Klar, the committee’s chariman, said that the period in which voting could take place was being extended to give more students a chance to vote.

“We’ve already reached quorom,” Klar said Friday at the referendum’s voting station in the Indoor Quad of the Curry Student Center. “But we want to give as many students as possible a chance to voice their opinion on this issue.”

Throughout the referendum, which began Feb. 4, SGA has mounted a campaign in an attempt to get students to vote on what SGA officials think will provide the opportunity for more funding to be made available to student groups. Within SGA, they have organized street teams, had signs made and placed around the main campus encouraging students to vote, and held a table in the student center equipped with a computer that the students could use to access their myNEU accounts and vote.

News of reaching quorum was unimportant to SGA President Richard Schwabacher, as he expressed his desire for a higher number of votes.

“My goal from the beginning has been to get 30 percent of the student body to vote on this issue,” Schwabacher said.

Despite SGA’s support of the referendum on raising the fee, Klar remained committed last Thursday to letting the students decide the matter.

“My goal from the beginning was to get students to vote,” Klar said. “Even if it gets voted down, at least we were facilitating the students in voicing their opinion.”

While he could not provide the figures of the current results on Friday, Klar said at the SGA’s last official meeting on Feb. 20, “If [voting] goes like it is right now the referendum will not pass.” At that time, only 13.7 percent of the student body had voted on the issue.

The referendum comes at a time when, in the wake of SGA’s plight to investigate all student fees on campus through a special committee, fees are under heavy scrutiny. Michael Benson, the chair of the the special committee and the SGA’s vice president for financial affairs, said during debate about forming the committee that the Student Activities Fee will be investigated along with all other undergradute fees.

As the referendum is being conducted through computers on the myNEU Web site, results of the voting will be made available sometime after next Thursday.