What can you do in 17 minutes? Well, the Student Government Association (SGA) can approve a budget proposal of over half-a-million dollars in 17 minutes. In the last month it has come to my attention that there are serious problems within the Finance Committee of the West Chester University SGA. In an attempt to get to the bottom of this issue, I have done my own investigation into how our student leadership has been handling the allocation of our tuition.We will begin with the fact that the SGA has been practicing a closed door policy within the Finance Committee’s sessions; this committee exerts absolute control over budget concerns with no oversight or accountability in any form. This closed-door policy (the only one practiced by any SGA standing committee) has shut out the media, the public and the rest of the Senate, rendering the rationale behind the Finance Committee’s decisions a complete mystery. In addition, a recent amendment to the financial bylaws prevents the Senate from modifying Finance Committee recommendations. This means that the Senate may vote only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a budget item – an extremely restrictive requirement. Furthermore, the general Senate receives none of the necessary information needed to make informed decisions, such as budget requests by organizations, previous years’ allocations and justifications for the organizations’ requests for funding. When you combine all of this, you witness what happens to a committee when there is no accountability and oversight. As of now, the Senate Finance Committee has been endowed with absolute power when it comes to the survival of student organizations receiving funding from the university. Put simply, the money we pay in the form of taxes and tuition is being spent by a committee that does not have to justify its decisions to anyone.
The responsibility of determining the budget is a serious one, but as of late, it would appear that the Finance Committee has taken to marginalizing its own bylaws and has demonstrated a terminal disconnect with reality. We now move onto the fact that there is minimal oversight given to the SGA Finance Committees budget proposal. For example, the budget was passed on Jan. 23, 2007, during a meeting which lasted only 17 minutes. Once the budget was submitted for scrutiny by the Senate, two questions were asked before it was passed. Two questions worth of scrutiny on a $600,000 budget proposal?! No, that’s not a misprint, check out the SGA Web site where you will find that, our representatives spent less than 17 minutes evaluating the expenditure of over $600,000. Our next example comes from the March 6, 2007, meeting during which there was the final speed passing of the budget. However, this time one of the senators demanded to know why they were not better informed regarding the reasoning behind the Finance Committee’s decisions, to which the Treasurer responded, “That’s what the [Finance] committee is for. Many senators don’t know how budgets work so it make[s] it easier to keep it in the committee.” Yes, we agree; when the Senate wants to do pesky things like provide oversight and accountability to the Finance Committee, it makes passing a $600,000 budget so tedious. The problem should be crystallizing at this point as we realize that the members of the Finance Committee – students just like you and me – are receiving little to no oversight from the SGA.
The contradictions which I mentioned before come in the form of the enumerated reasons for acceptance/rejection of auxiliary requests for funding, which according to the bylaws should be based on primarily on need, merit, and the status of the auxiliary fund. SGA receives around $25,000 a year for their own funding and around $25,000 a year in the auxiliary account (for distribution to organizations in need). Simple analysis of the Finance Committee’s decisions reveal the committee will recommend more extensive funding if the organization making the auxiliary request pledges to pay out-of-pocket for some their own expenses (such as lodging fees). The problem with this policy is that it excludes economically underprivileged students from participating in what should be non-discriminating organizations (because these students can not afford to pay out-of-pocket for their own expenses). Socioeconomic discrimination, while not illegal, reduces diversity and promotes classism. This is not a very ethical manner of conducting business as the representatives of a state-run university, not to mention that this policy is directly contrary to the bylaws’ enumerated policy for allocation.
Moving onto the SGA’s conflict of interests, we will examine the auxiliary funding procedure. For most organizations, the auxiliary request process is stringent and non-repeatable. However, SGA isn’t most organizations; in fact, it is the only organization that is allowed to make an unlimited number of requests for auxiliary funding. So in addition to being able to take as much auxiliary funding as they wish, any money remaining in the auxiliary fund at the end of the year reverts to the SGA reserve account, which is under direct control of the SGA Finance Committee. I can just hear you saying, that can’t be right, why would there be a conflict of interests written into the bylaws? Sadly though, you heard right (refer to the SGA Finance Bylaws – p.3 #11). It’s the equivalent of me giving you $25,000 to give to charity and saying ‘If you don’t give it all to charity by the end of the year you can keep the rest’. Good deal.except they are playing with our tuition. While I’m sure the SGA leadership could provide us with some woefully inadequate (yet clever) justification, I think we would rather see the auxiliary money be used as it was intended to, oh you know, fund organizations in need.
Now we can see how the behavior of our representatives is not congruent with the sort of transparent bureaucracy that was originally intended when SGA was established. At this point, difficult questions must be asked. Why does the SGA Finance Committee have absolute power with no oversight and why has the Senate failed to check this absolute power? In addition, why is the Finance Committee engaging in ethically questionable practices and why are there conflicts of interest written into the SGA financial bylaws? Finally, why has this been allowed to happen by the future leaders of our country? These students wanted the responsibility of being members of student government, now they must prove to us, their constituents, that they deserve our trust. If the general Senate assembly does not take back their power to provide oversight soon, the executive board of the SGA may just amend them right into a rubber stamp.
– Steve Tucker (Special to The Quad)