Council members say the proposal is more thanjust an attempt to secure more student servicesand a bigger campus presence. It's also necessary,they say, to keep up with inflation.

The last time the Faculty Council allowed theUndergraduate Council to raise the term-bill feewas in 1988. Gabay says that if the term-bill feehad been adjusted each year since then to keeppace with inflation, today it would stand at $28.

Finally, Mann says that even with a $30term-bill fee, the share Harvard students pay totheir government would still be the lowest amongboth Ivy League and Boston-area colleges.

Most critics of the proposed term-billincrease say the council is not adequatelyspending the money it already has.

"Even with a $20 fee this year, and even with[16 percent] of people we have now not paying thisfee, the council still has a large roll-over atthe end of every year," says Rene Reyes '95, thecouncil's former treasurer.

"Until we organize ourselves to the level wherewe're maximizing our use of the funds, I'd [opposethe increase]," Reyes says.

Reyes' criticism stems from the council'shistory of allowing huge sums of money to remainunspent at the end of each academic year. At theend of 1991-92, more than $40,000 was left fromthe budget, says Gabay, a former counciltreasurer.

And nearly $25,000 remained unspent after1992-93, according to Reyes.

A large part of the extra money consists ofgrants that are allocated to but not collected byvarious student groups.

Reyes, who chaired the finance committee lastspring, estimates that approximately $15,000 oflast year's roll-over was in the form ofuncollected grants.

But the other $10,000--and a sizable portion ofevery year's roll-over--is not spent because of"events that just don't come off", Reyes says.

Liston, however, rejects this criticism. Hecalls last year's $25,000 roll-over "an anomaly."And he says the roll-over projected for 1993-94,which Gabay estimates to be about $6,000, is amore relevant figure in considering a fee hike.

"We're not going to have significant rollover,and that's with spending $25,000 [from last year'sroll-over] that we won't have next year," Listonsays.

Liston says, for example, that the councilwould not have had money for Yardfest if it hadn'tbeen for the extra $25,000 left over from 1992-93.

In other words, the council won't vices, letalone expand, without an increase in theterm-bill, Liston says.