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On Wednesday, April 1, the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate passed a new amendment regulating the Finance Board, the student body within SGA meant to distribute the Student Activity Fund (SAF). Over the last year and a half, the Finance Board has repeatedly had regular shifts in the regulatory policy from the Senate, and has come under fire for whether or not it has been adhering to the policies.
According to SGA Senator Roberto Cassano, this amendment was “[e]xtremely messy and very rushed”. He said they “were given the bill 30 minutes before the meeting was over and had to vote on whether or not to pass it”. Cassano voted nay, though was in the minority; the bill passed 15-5, meeting the necessary two-thirds majority.
If you (like me) have been following the ongoing issues with Finance Board for a while now, you may remember that SGA passed a separate amendment a while back requiring double reading of all amendments, where the current language has to be approved at two separate meetings before it goes into effect. So, right away, I have concerns about whether or not this was actually passed in any enforceable manner, if Cassano’s allegation of only being given half an hour to read and vote on it is true. That said, let’s get into the content of the amendment.
There actually are some parts that do look promising, and I’m going to start with those. Namely, it creates the role of Finance Board Auditors. Each year, two auditors who cannot simultaneously serve elsewhere within SGA or on the executive boards of other clubs on campus are appointed by the Executive Vice President (EVP) of the SGA Senate. Their job is not to distribute the funds, but rather to be an additional set of eyes ensuring distribution of funds is equitable. I actually think the role is a good idea, though I have concerns about the appointment. It does not appear there is any requirement for the nomination to be confirmed, which gives the EVP direct and sole ability to assign people to review and approve Finance Board allocations, and that is a lot of unsupervised power that can be used to help or hurt organizations based on the auditors’ and EVP’s priorities. Personally, I think one should be from the head of Finance Board, and one from the EVP, and that both have to be voted to confirm. However, on a high level, I think this role has promise.
Next, the Finance Board Chair was changed to the Vice President of Finance (VPF). This does give them a formal voice in the Senate, and the ability of the Senate to regulate the Finance Board without direct representation has long been a point of contention. That said, the Finance Board has always been, by design, somewhat independent of the other branches of SGA, to keep them more unbiased. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have the Finance Board appoint a Senator to SGA from among its members. I am concerned that the VPF being a member of the Senate may be a conflict of interest.
This amendment also gives the VPF a vote in allocations. Traditionally, the Chair wasn’t actually able to vote on the final allocations, as their role was more administrative. I personally think this change is neither here nor there. It does make sense that they have a say in the final vote, but also raises the concerns again about the amount of influence that the Senate has in Finance Board right now. There are benefits and drawbacks to it.
I also have serious concerns that this does not understand the current structure of the Finance Board. The amendment claims to create a new role of the Finance Board Vice Chair, to take up the duties that largely were to fall to the Executive Administrator (EA; more on that in a moment). However, the Finance Board already has a Vice Chair, and, while this amendment does replace the Chair with the VPF, it doesn’t replace or remove the previous Vice Chair. Is this an additional responsibility to the current Vice Chair? Does this replace the Vice Chair? Do both roles exist simultaneously as two separate people but they have the same title for some reason? I don’t know from the text of this amendment, and I feel like that’s something I should be able to tell from it. You cannot change something without understanding what it is you’re changing.
Going back to the EA for a moment, I’m still not convinced this role exists. As I mentioned before, an SGA Senate amendment requires double readings. The EA amendment for Finance Board was, as I reported on last year, passed in a similarly rushed motion without proper briefing or time to vote on it. It never made it through double reading. I think that this current amendment makes changes that presume a role exists from an amendment that was never properly passed in the first place.
Finally, the main area of concern for me is the additional authority given to the SGA President over Finance Board. Now, I don’t think all of the ideas are bad. For instance, the President having some responsibilities to make public information about time and location of the Finance Board hearings is likely a net positive. Similarly, I think it’s weird that the requirement for a presentation on the Finance Board allocation to the Senate is done by the President and not the VPF, but I still think this being a required presentation is a net positive, even if the President is the one giving it.
However, the President gets to appoint the VPF, and there is no confirmation requirement. Additionally, the President and VPF now have sole authority to nominate and reconfirm Finance Board advisors (the students who make the decisions on what budgets to approve and deny), which used to be a requirement for the Senate. Furthermore, the President and not the VPF presides over Finance Board meetings. The Finance Board Chair used to be a publicly elected position and the advisors had to be confirmed by the Senate. Under this new structure, the President can appoint the VPF without any oversight, and then the VPF and President can again appoint the entire Finance Board without any oversight. Add in that the auditors are also appointed without oversight, and the Finance Board is now fully under the control of the President and EVP. Students and senators no longer have a say in it.
This means that two people now control what organizations get funded for all of campus. The Finance Board’s independence has been fully gutted and now falls entirely under the President and EVP. This should be extremely concerning for everyone.
To my knowledge, there is not a public copy of this amendment currently available. My thanks go to Cassano for providing me with one.