The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Be On the Safe Side shuttle service was forced to cut back its hours this year due to financial complications, causing frustration among students.

The service ran from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. last year, and now runs from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m.

BOSS has been in service for five years. Since its origin in 2000, BOSS has seen an increase in usage by more than 800 percent from 21,176 transports with two vans in 2000-’01 to 186,102 transports with nine vans in 2004-’05.

“It sucks that we are in this situation,” said Courtney Gotz, director of BOSS. “We give more than 20,000 rides a month.”

But it costs between $20,000 and $25,000 a month to keep BOSS running, not accounting for the rising cost of gas, Gotz said.

Starting in 1999, BOSS was funded on paper by $7.50 in segregated student fees per semester, but the service didn’t begin running until 2000. The unused money, over $200,000, was put in reserve, and BOSS was forced to give back $1.50 per student in segregated fees the following year.

From 2000 through 2005, BOSS was funded by the $200,000 in reserve money and segregated fees totaling more than $1 million.

In the 2004-’05 school year, BOSS’s financing went up to $8 per student, “but it wasn’t enough to overtake the cost of doing business,” said Gotz. That year BOSS drained its reserve and ended the year in the red with a six-digit figure.

Facing significant debt, BOSS was told by the administration to make changes.

Cutting an hour off both ends of the service time seemed like a fair solution, Gotz said. He said the decision was difficult because of the volume of students who use BOSS services to return from night classes and who use it to return home late at night.

In addition to cutting hours, BOSS eliminated a program assistant position and all advertising from its budget. Unable to advertise, not all students are aware of the new hours.

One student was stranded at a friend’s home, unable to return to the dorms because she was unaware of the change in hours.

“I called at 1:30 (a.m.) and I was screwed for the night,” said Melissa Oleck, a sophomore and vice president of social programming for Sandburg Halls Administrative Council.

Oleck suggested cutting BOSS’s hours back on weekdays but keeping the 2 a.m. run time on weekends.

According to BOSS’s 2004-’05 usage report, it averaged 105 transports between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday night and only 58 transports between midnight and 1 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday night. Numbers were even lower for the 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. hour on weeknights.

Gotz welcomes students’ suggestions and will consider changing hours if there is enough student support. In November BOSS and other student organizations will go before the administration to determine fund allocation for the 2006-’07 school year.

“Student support is critical,” Gotz said. “We need their help and their voice.”

Many other organizations are facing the same financial crunches. BOSS is 100 percent service driven so the crunch was felt a lot harder than other organizations that can just cut a guest speaker, Gotz said.

Every year Gotz receives between 20 and 30 phone calls from the parents of incoming freshmen who are interested in the service.

“A lot of people think of us as only a drunk bus,” Gotz said.

He said students use the service as a safe way to get around campus and the East Side.

BOSS can be reached at 229-6503 seven nights a week from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. BOSS boundaries are Hampton Avenue on the north to Brady Street on the south and Seventh Street on the west to Lake Michigan on the east.

Students can e-mail Gotz at cgotz@uwm.edu.

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