Editorial: USAC needs to face poor handling of stipend increases

Governance becomes a lot easier when elected representatives sidestep discussion of the repercussions that result from their unethical decisions.

Undergraduate Students Association Council members have repeated pleas to move past the issue of stipend increases. But three months after the USAC council voted 8-1-0 to almost double its own compensation, student groups are feeling the fiscal squeeze.

At its Tuesday meeting, USAC made no mention of the toll councilmembers’ boosted stipends exacted on the Student Organizations Operational Fund, a fund dedicated to supporting student organizations.

As the Daily Bruin reported last week, increased compensation for USAC members, totaling $35,000, coupled with a jump in the number of applications to SOOF, pushed the average allocation of money to student groups from about $480 per organization last year to $370 this fall.

This board has addressed the issue of stipend increases in multiple editorials because unaccountable governance cannot become an unspoken norm at UCLA, no matter the blinders student officials wear to their own missteps.

Councilmembers say the stipend increase shouldn’t color their term, but it has and should and will continue to do so until they own up to their poor handling of the issue.

The current situation is made all the more perplexing by recent controversy surrounding Internal Vice President Avi Oved’s plans to create a quarterly budget report headed by former Bruins United slate chair Ken Myers.

Members of the council voiced concerns that Myers’ affiliation with Bruins United could seep into the proposed audits of each office’s spending. When slate politics were in the mix, USAC displayed a keen attention to its budgets.

But when all of council stands to benefit from a decision that clearly breaches a conflict of interest, nobody seems to want to speak up.

While the council carries the burden of responsibility for the present situation, student groups should not remain silent on the issue.

USAC Budget Review Director Jacob Ashendorf, who oversees the SOOF funds, said a handful of student groups expressed concerns to him on the issue.

To permit the council to ignore the repercussions of raising its own stipends is to give implicit permission for USAC to continue to walk over the principles of good governance. Now that USAC’s poor decision-making has impacted the bottom line for student groups, they have no excuse to be silent.

Student groups who have seen a dip in funding from SOOF this year must voice their concerns publicly and insist that USAC cease sweeping the issue under the rug.