Honor Council Blanket Tax Contingency Committee should become priority

By Thersher Editorial Board     10/1/14 10:20am

The Student Association Blanket Tax Contingency Committee has not yet convened an official meeting to investigate Honor Council’s finances after their SA Blanket Tax Standing Committee referral last year. Honor Council receives $2.00 in blanket tax money per student per year for a total of $7,900 (see p.1).

The Thresher believes the SA should more highly prioritize the Honor Council’s blanket tax review process. If the Standing Committee does not make a decision soon, the entire 2014-15 blanket tax process could potentially be affected, creating repercussions for all blanket tax organizations.

The Contingency Committee’s inaction in response to the Honor Council’s referral reflects poorly on the SA’s organizational structure. If the SA cannot properly handle a procedure that so directly and causally affects other student organizations, their institutional effectiveness should, as a whole, be called into question.

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Additionally, Honor Council should reevaluate their ethics in the face of their referral. Blanket tax organizations should never spend $50 a person on a changeover dinner; doing so constitutes a blatant misuse of student funds. Hopefully, public knowledge of this practice will curb its excess.

As organizations that receive student money, blanket tax organizations such as the Thresher and Honor Council have a duty to responsibly spend that money. When Honor Council found that it rarely used all of its yearly budget, it should have accepted the decrease in blanket tax funding that was proposed in the Standing Committee proceedings, instead of maintaining a large surplus. No organization needs $29,000 in reserve funds for emergencies — that money could be used for many initiatives more important to the student body.

The newly formed SA blanket tax pod should seriously consider how the review and contingency committees function. The current requirement of finding an organization in violation three out of four years makes it borderline impossible to effect changes in blanket tax funding. Student oversight over student money is absolutely imperative, and the process should reflect students’ abilities to create changes when necessary. The pod should work to ensure that something similar to Honor Council’s case does not happen in the future.

Honor Council’s case serves as a lesson in student organizational ineffectiveness, not only for Honor Council, but also for the SA. It begs the question, “How did Honor Council’s continual misuse of student money continue unabated?”

Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher editorial staff. All other opinion pieces represent solely the opinion of the piece’s author.

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