When the Wolfline bus company, Viola, called the Student Government office asking for payment for the Red Terror Transit buses’ services, officials realized they had either lost or misplaced bills and invoices totaling about $8,675.40 of overspent money.
The University requires that every fee funded department keep a reserve in its budget for emergency situations and SG’s reserve was required to be one-twelfth of its $221,250 budget, $18-19,000.
According to David Foxx, student body treasurer, after SG pays off its bills, it will be about $2,000 under the reserve, which he said is not bad since the University allows a leeway of a couple of thousand dollars, and that also meant that SG would not have to cut back from the next year’s budget.
“The new fiscal year’s budget is fine,” Foxx, a junior in political science and history, said. “The problem is during the last administration, for whatever reason, monies were overspent.”
According to Mike Giancola, director of the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service and adviser to the SBT, part of the reason the problem arose was due to a transitional period from when Cira Mervin, SG’s Office Manager, was out due to personal reasons, though he said he could not discuss personnel issues in depth.
“It’s not the case where [SG] depleted the reserve … [but] the University Budget Office wants you to not rely on that every single year,” he said.
Giancola said Student Government has had a surplus of money these past few years and he’s encouraged the officers to use the money more wisely.
Although Giancola said he saw some trends, the overspent budget situation was not a problem he anticipated earlier.
Adam Compton, previous student body treasurer and current finance chair, said throughout the year, however, he saw several red flags that pointed to possible problems, which he said he pointed out but had to take responsibility for.
Compton said there were several line items that were not under his control, but were still being paid under the same budget.
“Ultimately, there was only so much I could do,” Compton, a junior in agricultural business management, said. “I had to assume that matters were being handled properly.”
Foxx said Compton is not the one to blame though as he was one of the best SBTs SG has had, and both Foxx and Compton said SG is exploring new options to prevent such situations from occurring again.
“We worked out a new way to where it’s just Dave and his staff, and the [University] budget office that’s dealing with that money,” Compton said.
Giancola said one challenge for student officers because of the yearly turnover is “making sure you have good communication with the outgoing and incoming officers.”
Forrest Hinton, previous Student Senate president, said this problem was not a unique one to this past year’s budget.
“Student Body Treasurers come and go, but Student Government’s budget problems seem to be continual,” he said. “The problem doesn’t lie with Student Body Treasurers or the Senate. The problem lies with poor management from Student Government’s office manager, Cira Mervin, and little to no advice from Mike Giancola.”
Hinton emphasized that the problem remains to be that too many people have access to the budget and that not enough trust is placed in the SBTs.
“Managing Student Government’s budget is like throwing darts in the dark,” he said.
According to Hinton, when SG had to give up its checking account access to the University, it no longer could make emergency expenditures and had no control over salaries, appropriations checks and many University records in regards to SG’s budget.
Giancola, on the other hand, said he encourages the officers to use SG’s money in terms of University regulations and said SG was audited three years ago. Compton also requested that an internal audit be carried out every two years, so as to keep SG’s budget transparent.
