11-9-09: Stanford: Op-ed:Executive Expenditures, the ASSU, and Fiscal Responsibility

Dear Stanford community,

The Review’s article examining the discretionary expenditures made under the Avula/Jones Executive echoes a series of long-standing ASSU deliberations regarding the limitations that should be placed upon discretionary expenditures.

Rightfully so, this issue has been one that has absorbed much of my time and the time of two Executives (Dorsey/Harris and Gobaud/de la Torre). In numerous conversations, several ASSU officials (including myself) have reiterated that there are too few controls on discretionary expenditures. And while policy changes are always a work in progress, I believe that the past ten months has shown the ASSU to be an organization strongly capable of self-policing and self-regulating itself.

ASSU discussions about discretionary expenditures extend back more than ten months ago when Jonny, Fagan and I initially became aware that some of the discretionary expenditures in the Avula/Jones Executive might have violated the ASSU’s bylaws. Although none of us owed any political allegiance to the Avula/Jones administration (none of us had served in any substantial administrative capacity during their tenure), we felt that the gravity of the accusations required us to trend smartly.

After reviewing two internal reports developed by then-Operations Manager David Gobaud and then-Capital Group Director Matt Sprague, Jonny, Fagan and I informed the office of Internal Audit that there was a possibility of a bylaw violation. Soon thereafter, the Office of General Counsel was informed. Consultations with those offices soon followed.

The ASSU had no qualms about self-reporting potential abuses, and I consider our reaction as proof that the ASSU can act with the utmost professional décor.

Following our consultations with University members, it quickly became clear that the bylaw rules regarding discretionary expenditures were so broad that any attempt to bring a case against the Avula/Jones administration would have a near impossible chance of succeeding.

The Review may actually have come to providing the extra level of evidence we lacked so many months ago, but at the time of this writing, even the Review seems to have tiptoed around this issue carefully in the advanced copy provided to me. Testimony from cabinet members would have made any case against the Avula/Jones administration much stronger, but when the claim was first reported to the University, there seemed to be no such testimony.

One Review source mentions that “[F]ood was very often purchased for events that had little relation to official ASSU matters.” However, the source goes unnamed and without linking a particular charge to this claim. With no one willing to come forward and connect his or her experience with the cabinet to specific expenditures, we as a community are left in the same position in which the ASSU found itself several months ago. We remain absent the necessary evidence to know absolutely what happened within the Avula/Jones Executive and, more importantly, unable to say beyond reasonable doubt that discretionary expenditures were inappropriate or against ASSU bylaws.

As the investigation came to a standstill, Jonny, Fagan and I refocused on our efforts. The ASSU had to create stronger internal mechanisms to prevent even the appearance of abuse in the future. It was not enough that we had reacted; we needed proactive enough policies to aid us in prevention.

Since the close of the investigation, there has been a substantial reform implemented that has and will continue to ensure best practices within the ASSU. The ASSU will no longer adopt a passive policy of releasing information. Instead, the organization will make the commitment to publicize the details of its political expenditures, thereby making close scrutiny of the political bodies’ expenditures easier and more frequent.

There are obviously quite a few more regulations needed to shore up our ability to sufficiently self-regulate. There need to be discussions about the ethical rules surrounding discretionary funds. There need to be changes to documentation requirement. These changes will most certainly be ratified in the ASSU bylaws over the coming months, and with those changes, the ASSU will have comprehensively addressed this issue.

Matt McLaughlin

ASSU Financial Manager

CEO, Stanford Student Enterprises

http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=1035656