Natalie Delgadillo: New online audit form still leaves room for exploitation

The Undergraduate Students Association Council Contingency Programming Fund is the most applied-to student government fund on campus, and student groups draw from it to pay for everything from large-scale events to staff retreats.

But some groups have also found ways to use the money for things it was not meant for, such as alcohol, said Cynthia Jasso, a fourth-year political science and Chicana/o studies student and chair of the USAC finance committee.

To prevent this type of abuse, Jasso is introducing a new audit process for all student groups that apply for contingency funding.

The new audit process is a necessary step toward greater accountability for student groups that have hardly been monitored up to this point. However, the relatively loose structure of the audit itself leaves too much room for the same kinds of misuse of funds to continue occurring.

The new audit system will require all student groups to fill out an online audit form after receiving their funding. The form is a simple survey on what the group ended up spending money on and how much, if any, was left over.

One glaring issue is that the online audit form is filled out by the student groups themselves. For those groups that want to exploit loopholes, the audit form will do little to stop them – all they have to say is that everything was spent as they said it would be in their application, and unless they are audited physically, they can continue to do as they please.

The online audit form would fail to pick up on a number of strategies students can use to dodge the rules.

For example, Jasso said students sometimes create a “hoax” event that a group may not actually hold, and then put the contingency allocation toward a larger event they have been planning. She added that this tactic allows groups to circumvent funding caps on events.

Certainly, the money that goes into contingency is meant to be used by student groups, and they should not face stringent monitoring in their use of it nor overbearing suspicion of misuse. But contingency money comes out of every student’s pocket, and the student body deserves to be sure the money is spent on the things it was meant for.

To ensure that funds are used appropriately, the committee should increase face-to-face contact with student group leaders, rather than relying on the online feature that makes up the main component of the new auditing process.

The finance committee already does physical audits of 5 percent of the total events they fund, as laid out in its bylaws. This means that a member of the committee attends the event it is auditing and makes general observations about the turnout. The committee member then fills out an evaluative form that the group receives a few weeks after the event, and the group has an opportunity to meet with the committee to clarify or ask questions.

With the new online form, however, Jasso said she hopes that she and her committee will gather a better idea of what types of funding certain kinds of groups and events need, and improve future allocations.

In this spirit, the finance committee must work to improve the auditing system not just in an online format, but also with its physical presence. Increasing the number of events being physically audited to more than 5 percent of the year’s allocations is a good place to begin.

Moreover, finance committee members should meet with student group leaders that have used contingency money and have not had their events physically audited, and complete a more in-depth questionnaire about how much money was used and what it was used for. It’s more difficult to hide things or be deceptive when you’re speaking with a real person as opposed to filling out an online survey, particularly if the questions are more in depth.

The new online auditing strategy is a starting point, but without a closer relationship between the finance committee and student group leaders, it will do little to achieve the goals it sets out.

Email Delgadillo at ndelgadillo@media.ucla.edu or tweet her @ndelgadillo07. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.

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