A bill supporting the Department of Residence’s proposed 2003-04 room and meal plan rates will be introduced at Thursday’s Inter-Residence Hall Association meeting.

Student complaints and suggestions concerning the proposals were heard by Jon Lewis, director of campus dining, and Randy Alexander, director of the Department of Residence, at last week’s IRHA meeting.

The presentation was well-attended by IRHA members and students residing in the halls.

Eric Peters, Willow Hall representative, Colleen Prosser, Towers Residence Association treasurer, and Justin Rasmussen, Richardson Court Association president, have proposed the bill accepting the proposed room and board rate changes that Alexander presented at last week’s meeting. Considering current inflation, room increases are acceptable and are “not insanely high,” Peters said.

The present and proposed room and board rates can be found at www.irha.us.

He said the purpose of the bill is to officially tell Lewis, Alexander and the Iowa Board of Regents the IRHA is in support of the changes. The regents has not yet been presented the proposed rate changes and IRHA wants the regents to know IRHA is behind the changes, Peters said.

An area of contention at the last meeting that has since been addressed was changes to the way students purchase sack lunches in the residence halls.

At last week’s meeting, Lewis proposed changes for sack lunches that included making them payable with Dining Dollar$, rather than with student meal plans.

Lewis and Alexander were surprised by the negative reaction of members of the audience when they were told about the proposed change in the sack lunch program, Prosser said.

She said the data used to make these changes gave the residence department the impression that sack lunches were not widely used.

Prosser said student input at the meeting caused Lewis and Alexander to reconsider changes to the sack lunch program. Sack lunches will be back on the meal plan and not use Dining Dollar$, Peters said. However, the sack lunch plan is not “back to normal,” he said.

Students will be allowed one sack lunch or take-out service per day, Peters said. Instead of the point system that’s used, four items will be allowed at breakfast and five items will be allowed at dinner, he said.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, a bill that would change IRHA’s bylaws will be introduced. The proposed bill states “all financial legislation for a scheduled event must be submitted at least two weeks prior to the start of the event.” The bill is in part a reaction to the last meeting and some incidents from last semester, Peters said.

At last week’s meeting, a bill to give the Multi-Cultural Leadership Seminar $1,635 was struck down after the waiving of the first read because it was submitted late to parliament. The seminar took place on Saturday. “IRHA has gotten a reputation for being a last-minute source of money,” he said.

Prosser said the proposed change was discussed by the finance committee last semester but some members thought the change would be too restricting.

The IRHA meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Wallace-Wilson conference room.