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I’ve spent the last several weeks cataloguing the FinBoard Accountability, Communication, and Transparency (FACT) Amendment, a 2021 Amendment to the Student Government Association (SGA) Constitution to regulate the Finance Board (FB).
In the first article, I went through a general history of the amendment, the current language, and some common criticisms. The second went over the first half, nomination and confirmation of FB members, and compared this to current FB policy. The third went through the disclosure and transparency of the FACT Amendment and also compared this to current FB policy. The fourth and fifth covered FB defenses related to the Office of Student Life (OSL) and the SGA Constitution, respectively, and whether these made sense. The sixth wove an attempt to improperly force through an amendment with prior statements by chair (FB-C) Nya Harrison to argue that all of these issues were knowing and intentional, rather than ignorance and incompetence. Finally, the previous article looks at what next steps would be available to address these issues, including punitive actions, legitimate amendments, and reparations.
To conclude this, I wanted to focus on a much broader question: Why does all of this matter? What was the point of researching and assembling this article? And to answer that, I’m going to largely refer to reasons that current and former student organization leaders told me when I opened this discussion on a school Discord server. (I will not be naming these students, as not all had their screen names as their real names, and I don’t want to doxx anyone.)
The first reason for why I raised last article. Several student organizations (including Prism, the Black Student Union (BSU), and the Tabletop Role-Playing Games Club) were given budgets or budget proposals that blatantly violated FB policy for ticketing student events, sometimes with notification and sometimes without. In at least one of these cases, FB did not respond to requests for clarification. At least in theory, if there was potential disclosure of the FB hearings and discussion, these clubs could have had advance warning, or explanation of what was going on. Those records don’t exist, so those impacted will never know what went wrong.
I think there’s also something to be said for some of the concerns that impacted its inception. For instance, according to then-SGA president Benjamin “Ben” Barber, there were a lot of worries that a certain organization was embezzling or misappropriating funds, to the point where FB had to directly oversee their spending to ensure it didn’t continue. Another organization repeatedly alleged discrimination over certain line items being denied, while FB held it was because those items were deemed too expensive for a single-use item not essential to the event. Full disclaimer: I am not alleging that either club is still engaged in these activities. These were just concerns Barber mentioned to me that were contemporary to its development. That said, I still hear concerns about the organization accused of embezzlement, and I have been told of at least one other club whose president took an expensive club item home with them and has not returned it. I’ll also say that, personally, it seems really odd that both clubs who were public about being given false allocations were Prism and BSU, who are minority advocacy groups. I can’t prove anything, but that is a weird coincidence at least. All of this is to say that, while the specific circumstances may have changed, the underlying logic remains. More transparency makes embezzlement harder, while also providing clarification into concerns about discrimination.
Additionally, there have been rising concerns that Dean of Students (DoS) Katherine Stetz has been becoming more and more involved – and likely inappropriately so – in student organization budgets. I have no evidence to address the rumors that she reclaimed Student Activity Fund (SAF) money to ameliorate budget deficits elsewhere at the Illinois Institute of Technology (though I will note SGA deleted any attempts to ask then-FB-C Monique Perczynski if this were true, as well as her responses, which is odd if there’s nothing to hide). However, at least one person, speaking anonymously about actions while they were a club president, said that Stetz was their point of contact for FB, rather than a student advisor (FBA) as the SGA Constitution and Bylaws both require. According to OSL member and now-FB faculty advisor Sarah Hessasta, there had not been a faculty advisor to FB for quite some time, including the period of time this individual was referencing. Stetz had no formal affiliation with FB at that time, and there is no policy that even implies she should be working with clubs to allocate funds. This is a blatant violation of policy, and probably could have been caught with proper disclosure, but we don’t have that. That’s a problem.
And my last more theoretical point of discussion before I get into specific student concerns is that soon there will be a lot more publicity anyway, so I don’t see why the FACT Amendment is overstepping. Patrick Fina of OSL showed me the incoming student organization system that should be implemented later this semester. One of the features that Fina wants to implement is a catalog of all student organization purchases (particularly capital items) to make it clearer about what we do and don’t have. Student organization finances are about to be a lot more public anyway, so I don’t see why having the FACT Amendment goes too far in this.
Please note: these were all on a public Discord. I know all these people personally and can verify they are current or former students at Illinois Tech, but not everyone has attached their real name to their account, so to avoid doxxing anyone, I will be leaving people anonymous.
User A said, “it seems weird to change that amendment, given the SAF is something all students pay into. [I] feel like we should have more transparency for where our money goes, not less.” Three people, including one of the FACT Amendment authors, supported this message via emoji reactions. This was the main concern that I’ve heard in general around this amendment – we all pay, we should have a right to know what we’re paying for.
User B said, “Tbh the only thing I really wanna know is how much money is allocated to student orgs for the semester how much the student orgs asked for in total how much money the student orgs ended up getting in total… At the end of the day I’m mostly frustrated with student org budgets being cut a lot when the total amount doesn’t add up to how much we should be getting [sic].” Knowing what is and isn’t allocated and what cuts were being made is not something that FB is willing to discuss most of the time but can be crucial to clubs being able to plan events or spend what money they do get.
User C said, “’exposing personal finances’ is actually a very good thing to do with a communal fund… quite frankly any org [sic] complaining about their finances being open should be setting off alarm bells as that seems terribly alarming and suspicious”. This supports User A’s comments but also goes back to the concerns about things like potential embezzlement.
User D said, “regarding public record of funding allocation, the only thing I care about it how many conferences and competitions are funded… According to university rules, you can only go to one funded conference per semester unless you are competing then you can go to multiple. [sic]” Making sure that funding follows policy is completely reasonable. Independent audits and investigations can be incredibly useful measures of ensuring people are in compliance. While this particular student was mostly concerned about conferences and competitions, I heard similar concerns from others (such as how easy it is for capital purchases to disappear).
The point is, this is something students want. Students are saying they want more transparency. And given each might have individual concerns – such as capital items, conferences and competitions, or comparative to the whole amount that can be allocated – the most effective way to assuage these concerns is some universal transparency policy, like what the FACT Amendment provides. I want to make something extremely clear here: the responses that I’ve covered were not cherry-picked. I didn’t include some of Harrison’s arguments for it, as I’ve covered those extensively in other parts of this series. But this was representative of the other comments I received. Ultimately, this matters because the students of this school want transparency in FB’s distribution of the SAF. And the FACT Amendment was designed to give that to them.
Thank you all for reading this and following to the end. This is a project unlike anything else I’ve undertaken, and I hope that it provides insight into a contentious area of school policy.
The following individuals or organizations did not respond to requests for comment: Katherine Stetz, OSL, FB, SGA, and Sarah Hessasta.