The mismanagement of student tax dollars has become a common trend for the Residence Halls Association. But failing to manage nearly $600,000 in student taxes each year is not in style, and the time has come and gone for the organization to put an end to its affluent ways.
Despite only passing the semester’s halfway point, RHA’s movies program has already spent all of its $82,500 budget for the spring semester.
RHA leaders say student demand for more recent, popular and expensive movies is the major cause of the movie budget problems.
But this isn’t the first time feature films have cost RHA more than it could afford. In 2000, the organization exceeded its budget by nearly $30,000 - partly because of movie costs.
The major problem with RHA’s money-spending system is that it doesn’t provide for oversight of independent departmental budgets. RHA comptroller Betsy Lewis said she is not required to preapprove expenses and normally receives bills only after money has been withdrawn.
If RHA doesn’t begin watching its dollars more closely, overspending problems will continue to plague the organization, which should be more responsible with the $21 it collects each semester from on-campus undergraduates.
But mishandling student tax dollars is not the only way RHA continues to be irresponsible in its duty to on-campus undergraduates. The group also tries to work secretly and undermines the ideals of American government.
The organization has formed an ethics committee as outlined in its bylaws to deal with undisclosed personnel issues that may or may not have to be related to the movie budget debacle. Along with refusing to release the committee’s purpose, RHA leaders also are not releasing the names of its members to The State News or the group’s general assembly.
While the group has the right to keep quiet about an open investigation until it is completed, it has a duty to let its constituents know who is conducting that examination.
RHA doesn’t have to look far to see that nothing good comes from secret investigations. In 2000, ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, conducted a secret investigation into the actions of its Student Assembly chairperson.
That investigation turned into a witch hunt, which almost ended with the leader’s recall and shamed the organization.
RHA has a duty to its taxpayers to be accountable for its actions and to quit allowing thousands of dollars to be wasted.
