After confusion about whether University Union spent funding from the Student Activity Fee on iPods for its directors last year, the Student Association brought into question the methods by which the comptroller approves expenditures for a student organization’s miscellaneous funds in its account.

During SA’s last Assembly session, ending in December 2005, UU had additional revenue leftover from last year’s Block Party, said UU President Dennis Jacobs. Because all leftover money in a student organization’s account must go back to SA, UU asked former SA Comptroller Andrew Urankar if it could use some of the revenue to purchase the iPods as gifts for the work UU’s directors had done that year, he said.

‘(The money) was not from the Student Activity Fee,’ Jacobs said. ‘We did not go before SA and say, ‘Can we have money for iPods?”

Urankar OK’d the use of the money for the gifts, Jacobs said. At the end of the year, UU returned about $10,000 to SA in leftover funds, he said.

Associate Dean of Students Roy Baker brought into question the way by which the comptroller can approve expenditures by student organizations. As it stands now, requests for expenditures do not go before the Assembly for approval; only the comptroller approves them.

Because this happened last year under a different Assembly session, Baker said, SA can do nothing to change the decision besides introducing a bill that would alter the comptroller’s control on expenditure requests.

Baker also voiced his opinion about student organizations returning their remaining funds at the end of the year. When an organization like UU makes about $50,000 or $60,000 in profit, ‘a large percentage of it should come back’ to SA so other student organizations can use it, Baker said.

President Wayne Horton said elected officers like the comptroller should be trusted ‘to act on our behalf in financial matters … (the approval last year) was (Urankar’s) decision … the best thing we can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

Jacobs said he believes the matter is moot at this point.

‘It was a year ago,’ he said.

The Assembly also passed a resolution calling for the Division of Student Affairs to change the Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities to include gender identity and expression in the section on non-discrimination. The bill, introduced by Horton, had been in the works for awhile, he said. It will become effective ‘as soon as possible,’ according to the bill.

Published on April 10, 2006 at 12:00 pm