Government of the Student Body President Dan Mangan said helping fund Cy-Ride has no hard-core connection to supporting nonrevenue sports.

Former GSB Sen. Dustin Shaver raised the issue of supporting the two at a recent meeting, saying the two organizations may have to struggle for the same funding.

“It’s going to be a combination of things. There isn’t enough there without allocating something from someone else,” Mangan said. “It may affect a lot of things, but this is not a case of nonrevenue sports and Cy-Ride.”

Currently, GSB contributes $14.75 per student to the athletic department, just a fraction of the funds needed to run the department.

“There is some university support and revenue generated from the sales of tickets from football and basketball,” said Laurie Gustafson, financial manager for the athletic department. “We also have funds we get from the Big Eight.”

Gustafson said the department has not yet discussed what it would do in the event GSB cuts funding.

“GSB dollars are part of the athletic department’s five-year financial plan,” she said.

Mangan said GSB has an ongoing commitment to help fund the athletic department’s nonrevenue sports.

Those sports include baseball, men’s and women’s track, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s golf, wrestling, women’s tennis, women’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, softball and volleyball.

Contributions to university entities such as the Memorial Union and Hilton Coliseum, Mangan said, could also be indirectly affected.

Currently, Cy-Ride receives $813,000 from GSB. This includes an additional $22 per student for the Moonlight Express, which is funded entirely by GSB, said Robert Bourne, director of Cy-Ride and the Ames Transit Agency.

Cy-Ride is being forced to scrape for additional funding as a result of a proposal in the GOP Contract for America that calls for a reduction in transit operation funds across the country. In order to keep a balanced budget, Cy-Ride is looking at other options.

Options include reducing services to the public, reducing the support system — training, maintenance, advertising and supervision — reducing drivers’ wages and benefits and generating more revenue.

“To maintain its [Cy-Ride’s] exact same services as now, we would need to have a 10 percent increase in student contribution for the next five years,” Mangan said. By the end of that period, students would be contributing $27 each to Cy-Ride.

“We don’t want to reduce the quality of services we provide, but somebody’s got to pay because the federal government isn’t going to pay anymore,” Mangan said.

Bourne said he expects Cy-Ride’s budget to be finalized in December. Meanwhile, the Ames Transit Board of Trustees will further discuss its options at an Oct. 11 meeting.