Student Association Executive Vice President Jesse Strauss recommended to administrators Monday changes to GW’s system of allocating portions of the University fee.
But administrators said the proposal may not offer a better option than the existing system of channeling money. The proposal’s credibility may be at stake because it was included in letters sent directly from Strauss to GW Associate Vice President for Finance Don Boselovic and President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, administrators said.
The proposal also has been drafted as a resolution but has not been introduced in the SA Senate.
The proposals were drafted “to design a fee that would be both more reflective of the goals of the fee and revenue neutral to the University,” Strauss wrote in an e-mail to The GW Hatchet. He said he drafted the proposal to “create a more honest fee.”
“No one knows where the money goes,” he said. “We are now aiming for more accountability and sunlight is the best antiseptic.”
Full-time undergraduate students pay $34.50 per credit hour in University fees.
Strauss said he wants students know how much money they give to the SA and see the results of the money.
With these thoughts in mind, he said he drafted two options in the proposal.
The first would ask for the creation of a “Student Association/Program Board Fee” that would put the equivalent of four percent of the current University fee into a separate fund. These funds would be directly given to the two student organizations instead of being channeled through the administration. The SA would receive 55 percent and PB would receive 45 percent, which is the proportion the two organizations currently receive.
But Strauss said creating a separate fund would help students understand where their money is spent.
Boselovic said various fees, such as fees for the yearbook or operations of the Marvin Center, were pooled together into one fund about five years ago.
“I don’t know if we would want to unbundle that,” Boselovic said. “Students will ask `Why am I being nickel-and-dimed?'”
The second option in the EVP’s proposal would group together SA, PB, Marvin Center Governing Board and the Student Activities Center to create “a student activities fee” in lieu of the current University fee. This fee would amount to 36 to 40 percent of the current fee. The actual dollar amount of the fund would depend on the amount of money allocated to SAC by the administration.
But the four institutions run in different ways and bringing them together may not work, Boselovic said.
“We look at the Marvin Center differently than we look at the SA and PB,” he said.
Instead of clarifying the use of the allocations, Boselovic said, “It would cloud the accounting.”
SA President Carrie Potter said student groups generally do not care about the lump sum. She said their interest lies in the funding they receive during allocations in the fall and during mid-year review.
She said the SA can work on accountability with the current channel of financial operations instead of restructuring the system.
“Accountability needs to be improved on the financial allocations process,” Potter said. She also said the SA needs to look toward the system of “checks and balances already built into the system – there’s your accountability.”
The mid-year review is a time for student groups to request more funds and for the SA to review the groups’ budgets. The process provides a system to monitor whether the SA allocated funds properly, Potter said.
Mike Gargano, assistant vice president for Student and Academic Support Services, said the SA constitution and its bylaws provide channels for accountability.
Gargano also said if the SA wants to foster more accountability, it can hold town hall discussions or post informational material on a Web site. He also said he is concerned that Strauss presented the proposal without the endorsement of the SA president.
“An endorsement by the SA president gives it the credibility it needs,” Gargano said.
