Student Association’s comptroller has scaled back financial transparency efforts after student organizations expressed concern that too much information had been publicized.

When Stacy Omosa ran for SA comptroller in April, her campaign platform centered on disclosing SA’s budget and how much money SA allocated toward each registered student organization on campus.

Omosa released SA’s semester allocations to The Daily Orange in November, detailing how much funding each student organization requested and would receive for the spring semester.

“I thought this was information the people wanted,” Omosa said. “I thought it would be perceived well. It wasn’t.”

After the numbers were released, student organization leaders began asking Omosa why other groups had received more money, she said. Other organizations were upset that budgets had been disclosed to the media, and many came to her office hours to express their concerns, she said.

Student organizations also started requesting more money than was financially feasible for SA to give out, Omosa said. Organizations were not considering that SA’s allocations also fund Student Legal Services and University Union events such as Block Party and Juice Jam, she said.

“I noticed from a comptroller perspective that this information should be private to protect organizations and to protect upcoming events,” Omosa said. “I now know that I have special privileges in student activities for a reason. That was a learning curve for me.”

Omosa continues to update RSOs about the SA budget, but she now only discloses the amount of money SA has available compared to the total amount of funds requested.

“I tell people how much we have,” said Omosa. “I think that’s very important because a lot of people didn’t know.”

Before RSOs can apply for funding from SA, they must first attend fiscal agent training to learn about SA’s finance code and the procedures for submitting a budget. The SA Finance Board automatically denies budgets of organizations that have not completed the training.

Tatiana Hernandez-Mitchell, president of Lambda Theta Alpha, said Omosa will notify her ahead of Fiscal Agent Training dates and will remind her to come to office hours if her sorority needs additional help managing its budget. Omosa sends her email updates, Hernandez-Mitchell said.

“Our treasurer will have a sit-down meeting with Stacy (Omosa), but that hasn’t happened too frequently,” said Hernandez-Mitchell. “We usually just send in the funding form, and she lets us know if we’re approved.”

Morgan Eaton, president of Groovestand Acapella, said Omosa will notify the group whenever a new funding opportunity, such as special programming, becomes available. Omasa has done a great job of making sure organizations are financially stable, Eaton said.

The Finance Board presents semester allocations at an SA meeting before each new semester. These meetings are open to the public so students can see the budget for themselves, Omosa said.

“It’s not like we’re hiding it. We’re just not making it super accessible,” Omosa said. “Making it so accessible, like in your face, in your email, I think that’s too much of a stretch.”

Published on February 5, 2020 at 10:35 pm

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