Documenting College Dollars: SFC Encourages Responsibility

Accountability. Responsibility. I’ve heard those words many times. Sometimes they are referring to sports, other times to school, but more often than not to money. Now that the Student Finance Committee has proven that its system of establishing budgets and ad-hocing funds works its time to focus on a different type of management of the money; a type that demands efficiency. It would be productive for student groups to be held accountable for spending their budgets on things that benefit the community as a whole. It’s almost like the SFC’s dad should sit them down and have a talk about how to spend money wisely.
The problem is that the SFC isn’t just one “child.” The Student Activities Fee is distributed among all of the campus groups, each of which has an independent budget. One proposed way of holding groups accountable for the way they spend their money is to make the budgets public information. This means that every student would have access to the amount of money that each group spends on any given event. When I asked around about whether students would like to have group spending information be published the answer was a resounding “Yes”.
I paid 180 dollars and you did too. I would hate to think that my money is being spent on activities that I don’t care to support. It’s my responsibility to be involved enough in a particular group to get my money’s worth. However, it is also each group’s responsibility to use money in a way that benefits more than a select few in the student body. When students know what their money is being spent on they can better regulate it.
The SFC wants to encourage accountability and responsibility without losing sight of its fundamental philosophy. Student groups, their advisors and treasurers are all expected to respect the appropriate use of funds through self-monitoring. There is no way Adam and Monica can make moral judgments everyday about the appropriate use of the SAF which is why the office runs under the assumption of trust. Publishing individual group spending will undermine this ideology even if the goal is to promote awareness and responsibility.
As a child my parents always told me that we would always have enough money to meet our basic needs but we had to set restrictions on our “wants.”
The SFC is in a similar position. The student activities fee will be replenished every year by tuition bills so there is no fear of a decrease in funding. In addition, the student activities fee has accumulated money that hasn’t been spent over the years. When students start setting restrictions on their wants the money will go further. As programs that affect the community as a whole need more money the excess money will be made available for such uses.
What if protests took school vans instead of buses or groups had potlucks instead of eating out at the Mandarin? Money could be saved. When an activity is planned for a select few students and money is used frugally the campus wide programs can receive more funding. The goals are simple but any creative solutions or comments would be appreciated (e-mail osfc@oberlin.edu).

-Laura Wallerstein
College junior
Student Finance Committee