Originally Posted by jesus

(although, they're given a spot in residence ...);

Just to clear up misinformation: only the President lives in residence for free (one of the benefits of the job). Every other SRA member (including, I assume, the BoD) is given a spot in residence PROVIDED they meet the academic requirements and can pay for it. I thought it was neat that I was given a spot in residence, should I want to take the offer... it wasn't something I was expecting.

The reasoning is that having people who are actively involved on campus would be beneficial to the first years living around them.

Originally Posted by Taunton

Just to clear up misinformation: only the President lives in residence for free (one of the benefits of the job). Every other SRA member (including, I assume, the BoD) is given a spot in residence PROVIDED they meet the academic requirements and can pay for it.

That's a guarentee that's made for many on campus groups.. it's part of the residence acceptance policy. You either need to have high marks or at least a 5 and be heavily involved in something.. The IRC gets rooms out of this same rule.

Originally Posted by temara.brown

The SRA approves the entire MSU budget, way more than just wages..

If you are worried about the integrity of the individuals in the process, perhaps think about what casey said.

The BoD wasn't allowed to vote on their own wages because it would be a conflict of interest. The same should apply to SRA members for the same reason. Sure, they can approve the budget, but I think certain portions of the budget with a conflict of interest should be decided by another party.


For example, the Social Justices Chair was part of Amnesty International. She wasn't allowed a vote in the social justices award because it was a conflict of interest. The same applies here.

Just my opinion, of course.

Oh and it's a totally valid one!

I was just saying there's even more to consider on this topic since the sra approves the whole caboodle.

But, the problem with the third party thing would be that you'd have to take the wage increase thing out of the student body's hands. Anyone can run for a BoD position in future years. Andrew C. was not a member of the SRA prior to his current position. The way this motion was done was that it was made through a committee that looks into these things specifically (the sra finance committee). This group is composed of sra members and general students.

If you're concerned about the process or want to get involved, think about sitting in on it. All you have to do is contact the commissioner.. It's not that much of a committment and you might be able to actually improve the organizations financial accountability. You'll at least be able to learn more about the process.

"The pay increases for MSU execs never came before the Finance committee while I was its chair. How did the SRA push through these pay raises without any committee work? and what has this year’s SRA Finance Committee chairman done to rectify these issues?"
- Bryan Vanderkurk (Finance Commissioner 2007/2008)

The 2008-2009 Finance committee was formed in April and the wage increase motion was made in june. Greg Elvikis was the commissioner of this committee and all of last year's SRA commerce students were members of it. Also, I'm not sure but I believe this was something that the outgoing VP Finance of the time had started. I would have liked to see a statement from last year's commissioner about all this when it was at its most fiery point but that never happened...

Originally Posted by temara.brown

When the SRA voted on the wage increases, the losses incurred at Quarters were thought to be nearly 12x less. It wasn't until the audit came in around October that it became known about how bad it really was.

The only whole I would poke through this is that it doesnt take an audit to know your financial position. You can pull Balance Sheets, Income statements, cash flow statements from your Financial software on the fly -- not to mention cost center analysis, aging reports, and various other financial tools that should give you an accurate snapshot of the unions financial position.

Traditionally adjustments are done by the auditors for corporations when there have been errors, but this are typically not material if the accounting system is funcitoning and controlled properly.