An International Education Services official at Iowa State has said international faculty and staff will not have to pay any extra fees for being tracked by the U.S. government — for now.

Early compliance and an already-established system helped keep Iowa State’s cost of implementing the government issued tracking system known as Student Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, to a minimum, said Dennis Peterson, director of International Education Services. However, with budget cuts looming, a fee for ISU’s international students to fund the program could become a possibility.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service mandated the records of all international students be tracked through SEVIS. All universities must have the computerized tracking system system in place by Jan. 30.

Iowa State has been tracking international faculty and students since 1994, Peterson said.

“We had a good system of tracking international students already,” Peterson said. “It’s our responsibility to make sure anyone who works at Iowa State is legal.”

The cost to implement the SEVIS system was $24,000 — $10,800 for the software and $7,000 for the computer server that holds the information, Peterson said.

Iowa State received the commercial software early, saving the university $29,200, he said. The software now costs about $40,000. Iowa State covered the cost for the server and the commercial software, rather than implementing a fee for international students, faculty and staff, he said.

A $5,000 fee to be a part of the commercial software database and the salaries of a team of four people at Administrative Technology Services to work with the SEVIS program has also been covered by the university, Peterson said.

However, Peterson said if there is another series of state budget cuts we might have to consider a fee for international faculty and staff.

“I’ve always been against an international student fee, and we’re hopeful that isn’t going to be the case,” Peterson said. “If it comes down to it, we might have to do it.”

The high cost of implementing the SEVIS system prompted one Midwest university to propose a special fee to cover the cost of tracking international students.

The University of Wisconsin—Madison was initially going to charge a fee for international students to help cover the cost of the SEVIS program, said University of Wisconsin—Madison spokesperson John Lucas.

Lucas said it was going to cost the University of Wisconsin about $300,000 to implement the government-sanctioned tracking system.

The university planned to charge international students $50 per semester and an additional $25 if they were enrolled during the summer.

The university formed a committee to study the SEVIS fees, after many international students spoke out against the proposed university-sanctioned fee.

“There was a strong backlash on campus,” Lucas said.

In August, the committee decided it would be best to take money from the main university budget to cover the SEVIS cost, Lucas said.

Linda Bellman, Madison, Wis. City Council member for the first district, was among 11 other council members opposing the extra fees for international students.

Bellaman said the Madison City Council doesn’t usually like to take a stance with university business, but this time, the council felt it was important to offer its recommendation.

Bellman said the university asking international students to provide money to be tracked was “irksome.”