The Council for University Programs’ (CUP) major event of the semester has suffered more setbacks than they expected, even after it has already taken place.
Due to a failure to document last-minute expenses and small budget changes and modifications, CUP’s spending report for their fall concert featuring hip-hop artists Busta Rhymes and Method Man was recently rejected by the Budget Review Committee (BRC).
“The first thing we do [when a spending report is rejected] is set up a meeting. We encourage whatever group it is to redo [the report] as a learning experience, but once a decision is made that’s final,” said SGA Vice President for Financial Affairs Alison Barlow.
CUP President Allyson Savin said there are several reasons the report for the concert was not accepted, but none involve an issue of missing money.
“We had a couple of logistical errors and the [BRC] wanted more explanation,” Savin said. “[The rejection] wasn’t due to missing funds or not accounting [for] funds, it was just how much detail it’s been accounted in.”
Savin said many CUP e-board members were somewhat inexperienced with “reports of that magnitude,” and used a spending report form from the Student Government Association (SGA) Web site which didn’t allow for the necessary amount of detail required for an acceptable report.
“[The form] didn’t allow us to go in-depth about how much we expected to spend and the difference between what we actually spent,” Savin said. “It’s just a lot of money and a lot of things to account for.”
When a spending report from any group is rejected, a mandatory meeting is set up between Barlow, and the treasurer and president of the organization.
Barlow confirmed that the meeting to discuss the report did take place yesterday.
Savin said she and CUP Vice President for Internal Affairs Danielle Strong met with Barlow to go over the mistakes and receive pointers on how to prepare a report next time to avoid a rejection.
“[CUP] knows if we are given the opportunity to program events like this and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of the students’ money, we have that responsibility to tell students where it went,” Savin said.
At Tuesday’s BRC meeting, CUP executive board members gave a revised copy of the spending report to the BRC and presented their request to begin work on their annual Springfest concert.
Adding there are many reasons a report could potentially be rejected, Barlow said she is looking into developing spending report workshops with numerous student groups to bring them through the process of preparing a report before they are forced to do it on their own.
Although there were mistakes in the original report, Savin said they were corrected immediately and she doesn’t anticipate a problem in the future. However, if there ever were an issue again, she said the communication between CUP and BRC would help correct it quickly and efficiently.
“You really do learn your lesson the first time,” Savin said. “Of course, if there’s ever a problem it’s going to be a joint effort to work it out as best as possible.”
Savin added that despite the setbacks she and her organization have faced during her first semester as president, she has enjoyed getting to know her staff and is looking forward to a successful spring semester and Springfest.
“It’s been an amazing experience getting to work with the most dedicated and fun kids on this campus,” she said. “I always said when I was in SGA there’s two ways to affect this campus. One is student advocacy, which is great, but the other is making the campus worthwhile for students while they’re here. It’s deciding how you’re going to remember the time you’ve spent at NU.”
