The Student Union has started to draft a policy wherein the Union Treasurer would compile reports on the success of chartered club events and club leadership that would be used to determine future funding, according to Treasurer Choon Woo Ha 08 and a Union memo obtained by The Hoot. Financial board (F-board) members who attend events would be encouraged to submit these reports.
The Treasurers job is to make sure he or she sets a policy to make sure the right clubs receive the right amount of money, said Ha. We dont want to be wasting money on the wrong clubs or events.
However, Ha also noted that F-board members would not be assigned to particular events. Reports would only be submitted by F-board members that choose, as students, to attend an event. The Union memo also states that members of the Ways and Means Committee could submit reports.
Im not appointing a specific person to spy, said Ha. Reports would only be submitted if an F-board member saw something worthy of reporting.
Ha explained that if an F-board member were to go to event X and see, surprisingly, nobody there, that would be a fact worth noting. He added that if an F-board member goes to an event that he/she thinks is amazing and wants to tell me that, go ahead.
Ha explained that the Union is seeking to find club events that are either consistently successful or consistently failures.
It depends on a case-by-case analysis, he said. We want to find out about any repetition.
The memo also includes a line stating that club leadership will be taken into account when clubs ask for funding.
There are so many great organizers on campus who come to ask for money three or four weeks before an event, and that says something about the club leadership, said Ha. However, he also noted that some clubs come to the F-board looking for the Treasurer to write a check the next day, consistently, and that can be taken into account.
Currently, no reports exist and the compiling policy has not been written into the Union bylaws, according to Student Union Director of Communications Brian Paternostro 07.
Previous amounts requested are relevant to allocations, of course. However, leadership quality and previous event success are not something we track, said Paternostro.
The goal behind the proposed Union policy is to give future F-board members insight into events that are funded repeatedly.
Theres no way to make decisions on just numbers, said Ha. There are non-monetary things we have to consider. By having a file, we can have a record, right there, concrete facts. Were trying to get information for future leaders. Regardless of implementation, Ha noted that this policy will not have any effect on funding for next semester.
I think fairness is the most crucial thing the F-board can think of, said Ha. We want to make sure that every penny goes to the right event.
