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
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