Natalie Delgadillo: USAC must stop delaying action on oversight of contingency funding

The original version of this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.

At last week’s Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting, there was a nearly unanimous consensus that the council’s apathy about funding should be addressed.

Ironically, the manner in which the council has gone about addressing these concerns is itself apathetic.

The finance committee, which has been discussed as the target for reform, oversees contingency allocations, meaning that it decides how much money gets doled out to student groups from the contingency programming fund. The council often simply rubber-stamps the finance committee’s allocations, approving them without much questioning or consideration.

The contingency fund is the most applied-to fund by student groups, so it is imperative that elected councilmembers take an active part in allocation.

In order to guarantee adequate oversight of the contingency fund, this year’s council needs to move forward quickly by asking Cynthia Jasso, chair of the finance committee, to draft a proposal for a bylaw change that would increase oversight of the committee by elected officials.

Currently, no elected officials sit on the finance committee. The bylaw change should make general representatives voting members of the finance committee, increasing the number of people on the committee from five to eight.

As I suggested in a column in May, when a similar proposal was discussed by last year’s council, the presence of general representatives on the finance committee would create a diversity of opinions and ensure oversight of funding by elected officials.

Since then, the council has taken no action to push forward last year’s proposal and tackle the issue of contingency oversight.

At Monday’s meeting, USAC briefly discussed putting in place significant reforms in this vein, but decided to postpone further action on the measure until all general representatives were present.

Had the council expressed interest in pursuing a bylaw change, Jasso said she would have drafted a new but similar proposal for the council to vote on at their next meeting on July 15.

While two of the general representatives, Sam Haws and Sunny Singh, are currently out of the country, they are fully capable of weighing in via email or Skype. They were offered that option before they left, but have chosen not to take it, Jasso said.

The input of the general representatives is certainly valuable, but if they are unwilling or unable to weigh in, time constraints demand that the council take action by immediately drafting a new proposal and putting a vote on the agenda for the next meeting.

Jasso pushed the council to make a decision about whether to move forward with the proposal at the meeting Monday night, pointing out that there is only one more council meeting before the end of the fiscal year, after which she would not feel comfortable with changing the composition of the committee.

This means that if the council does not take action soon, any proposed change will not be viable for another year.

Lizzy Naameh, the only general representative present at Monday’s meeting, said she did not feel comfortable being a voting member of the committee because she does not have the same training or expertise as the current committee members.

However, if the council acts now, the general representatives will have the time to read up on committee procedures, responsibilities and bylaws before the fall term begins.

Oversight of contingency funds by USAC has been discussed for years, but so far the council has failed to take decisive action on the issue.

If funding oversight truly is a problem that the council wants to solve, it is imperative that council stop pushing back this issue and address it directly by asking Jasso to draft her version of the proposal and putting it to a vote as soon as possible.

Correction: The Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting was on Monday, June 24.