Editorial: USAC bylaw changes need more consideration

The Undergraduate Students Association Council will vote Tuesday
on a thick stack of important bylaw changes that could alter the
process of student fee allocations. Overall, the changes could be
beneficial. But they must not pass without a few fundamental
alterations.

Bylaw changes of this magnitude are rare ““ and it’s
worrisome if more public deliberation doesn’t occur before
they are ratified.

If implemented correctly, the changes could significantly
improve the student group funding process. However, without a
couple important tweaks, they could also make the system much more
prone to secretive operation, further eroding a process in need of
more, not less, transparency.

There are two serious problems in the proposal presented earlier
this week:

First, all deliberations and votes of the Budget Review
Committee would be explicitly held in secret.

The committee has tremendous influence over the final budget
allocations, and if they are able to deliberate and vote without
any public scrutiny, it would undermine the accountability students
deserve when they’re forced to pay $100 a year to the student
government.

The business of legislative bodies is always discussed in
public, as required by law, unless a majority of the members vote
to hold a closed session in extremely special circumstances. For
example, Congress could never vote to spend tax dollars in closed
session.

And unlike a bipartisan Congress, USAC is almost always
dominated by a single slate that offers little room for dissenting
opinions. Furthermore, budget committee members are appointed by
the president.

Because of this structure, it is even more important that the
public hold budget committee appointees directly accountable.

Second, a change to a quarterly funding system would offer few
safeguards against the possibility of over-funding in the fall,
thereby creating deficits in the spring. Yearlong fiscal
responsibility should be woven into the bylaws.

Deliberations and votes open to the public would allow the
entire student body to understand exactly why some groups receive
more funding than other groups. Groups that receive less funding
than they expect would have a fair chance to offer a better
presentation for the next quarter.

The proposed quarterly funding system would allow USAC to
respond in a fluid way to changing student group needs and
unexpected situations. For example, a group formed to support
tsunami victims would be able to receive operational funding much
sooner than waiting until the following fall.

The Constitutional Review Committee has done a lot of work to
produce these proposed changes. But everyone involved with USAC
knows that a single word or clause can make or break a bylaw (like
the hour-long discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting about the
definition of “behalf.”).

This historic change must be clear today, but more importantly
for councilmembers 15 years from now ““ and the current
proposal simply leaves too much room for interpretation that could
permit outrageously unfair allocations.

The proposed changes hold the potential to make USAC’s
often criticized funding process more dynamic and equitable, but
neither goal will be achieved without these alterations.