LSU Student Government released a tool Tuesday aimed at promoting transparency, accountability and student engagement by clarifying how student funds are spent.
Developed by senior student Sen. Colin Raby from the College of Engineering, the new “Financial Dashboard” offers a real-time overview of SG’s finances by breaking down expenditure categories and visualizing the impact of each allocation.
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Before the dashboard was introduced, Raby noticed there were no means of tracking the money SG spent.
“What are we doing?… why do we not have something that shows live updates whenever we spend money, the state of all of our accounts?” Raby said.
The new dashboard, which can be accessed through the LSU SG website, will be a game-changer, Raby said, fostering a culture of fiscal responsibility and collaboration within SG.
“It’s going to make it very easy for things to be transparent. It’s going to make it easy for things to be accurate, and it’s going to be easy to make it understandable… giving a visualization of where our money goes in a very accessible format that students can interact with,” Raby said.
With automatic updates as money is spent throughout the year, the dashboard provides students with a comprehensive and categorized overview of SG’s financial decisions.
A recent Reveille investigation revealed multiple violations committed by SG in relation to the open meetings law and a general lack of transparency surrounding its operations.
“We’re definitely not where we should be. But, if you look at the last two years, we’ve come a long way toward being a transparent, accountable and productive Senate body,” Raby said.
The release of the dashboard is one of many steps SG plans to take to encourage open communication and collaboration between the organization’s branches and its constituents. In doing so, they hope to raise student engagement with SG.
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“We oftentimes see there’s a lot less buy-in from students on initiatives, mainly because they don’t know what even happened, or how they happened… It’s important for people to see where their money is going,” Speaker Pro Tempore of the Student Senate and political communication junior Emma Long said. Long said she hopes SG’s transparency shows students they can advocate for funding initiatives for their ideas.
In creating the dashboard, SG looks to lead the way among student governing bodies when it comes to transparency.
“I think it sets a standard for how financial transparency can happen and should happen within student bodies. I think we’ve shown that this is something that’s feasible for other student bodies to take place,” Long said. “It just needs someone to do it.”
Raby echoed a similar sentiment.
We will set the precedent in the SEC that student governments need to be transparent, they need to be accountable, and then they need to manage their funds well … you can’t just think about what you’re doing now. You need to think about how the next person will also do,” Raby said. This budgetary dashboard allows for much better continuity than ever before.”
