The University of California system is developing a new funding model that would make a greater portion of student-initiated fees available to the Office of the President.

The proposal — part of the Funding Stream Initiative — does not increase student tuition contributions but would institute a retroactive administrative tax on all student-voted fee referenda. UCSB charges a 1 percent tax on new student fees — set to jump to 6 percent at the end of this year and potentially up to 12 percent the year after — in addition to the 25 percent allocated toward financial aid.

According to Associated Students’ Associate Director for Community Affairs Aaron Jones, the program increases students’ education costs with diminishing returns.

“Students are paying students fees and students are paying taxes that go to the state and trickle down in some form to the University of California,” Jones said. “Students are also, through their own mechanisms, voting to address themselves taxes to support services that the university and state has failed to, and then the university is coming around and taxing those taxes and an increasing amount of the past three years.”

UC Student Association Riverside Campus Organizing Director David Castillo said diverting finances from student services without guaranteeing benefits puts the campus community in a vulnerable position.

“It cuts into funds that provide for student government, student offices and our safety money we use for organizing rallies,” Castillo said. “It is limiting and cutting into what we should be doing for the student population when we were already on a frugal budget.”

A.S. External Vice President for Statewide Affairs Ahmed Mostafa said the plan increases the UCOP’s income at the cost of students.

“Either way, students will be paying an extra amount of money for referendums or more of it will be going toward [the UCOP],” Mostafa said. “It is basically an excuse for them to make more money.”

The proposal mirrors UCOP’s trend of prioritizing central administrative support over students’ interests, according to Jones.

“When there are cuts to the budget of the campus and the University of California, the hardest hit cuts are student affairs,” Jones said. “These are the kind of things that speak not only to the privatization of the university but the over-reliance on students to bear the brunt of the privilege of going to a UC school.”