Governance becomes a lot easier when elected representatives sidestep discussion of the repercussions that result from their unethical decisions.
Undergraduate Students Association Council members have repeated pleas to move past the issue of stipend increases. But three months after the USAC council voted 8-1-0 to almost double its own compensation, student groups are feeling the fiscal squeeze.
At its Tuesday meeting, USAC made no mention of the toll councilmembers’ boosted stipends exacted on the Student Organizations Operational Fund, a fund dedicated to supporting student organizations.
As the Daily Bruin reported last week, increased compensation for USAC members, totaling $35,000, coupled with a jump in the number of applications to SOOF, pushed the average allocation of money to student groups from about $480 per organization last year to $370 this fall.
This board has addressed the issue of stipend increases in multiple editorials because unaccountable governance cannot become an unspoken norm at UCLA, no matter the blinders student officials wear to their own missteps.
Councilmembers say the stipend increase shouldn’t color their term, but it has and should and will continue to do so until they own up to their poor handling of the issue.
The current situation is made all the more perplexing by recent controversy surrounding Internal Vice President Avi Oved’s plans to create a quarterly budget report headed by former Bruins United slate chair Ken Myers.
Members of the council voiced concerns that Myers’ affiliation with Bruins United could seep into the proposed audits of each office’s spending. When slate politics were in the mix, USAC displayed a keen attention to its budgets.
But when all of council stands to benefit from a decision that clearly breaches a conflict of interest, nobody seems to want to speak up.
While the council carries the burden of responsibility for the present situation, student groups should not remain silent on the issue.
USAC Budget Review Director Jacob Ashendorf, who oversees the SOOF funds, said a handful of student groups expressed concerns to him on the issue.
To permit the council to ignore the repercussions of raising its own stipends is to give implicit permission for USAC to continue to walk over the principles of good governance. Now that USAC’s poor decision-making has impacted the bottom line for student groups, they have no excuse to be silent.
Student groups who have seen a dip in funding from SOOF this year must voice their concerns publicly and insist that USAC cease sweeping the issue under the rug.
Wow. Now this is what I call “ON POINT!”
Let’s hope people remember this when voting this coming election.
I would totally jump on this bandwagon, but the Ed board fails to recognize one of the other pressing issues concerned here. We have more and more student groups applying for this pot of money every year, and we have an IVP office committed to expanding that outreach. Though I commend the work the IVP office does to reach out to student groups, however misguided, the fact of the matter is that splitting the pot more just for the sake of splitting the pot more is what’s been hurting student groups (since 2005). It’s a communist-style model that we all know doesn’t work. Now, I love that I used to get some $500 or more for SOOF, but that number has decreased every year. What we need is someone to reform the way SOOF is allocated. Too many groups get a larger sum, fail to use the entire sum, and hold it hostage for an entire year before it returns to surplus. I would like to see someone take the lead on that.
The increased stipends are really a ploy to get more money into the hands of USAC members that want to back-hand funnel the money to their prized organizations. First example so far: the EVP leading a protest with the ASU.