ASWU modifies club funding accountability policies
This school year, the Associated Students of Willamette University (ASWU) have created new accountability guidelines to aid campus clubs in managing their finances properly.
In years prior, the ASWU senate had struggled to hold campus clubs accountable for funding, especially when they went over their assigned budget. Recently, the issue of how to manage funding accountability was brought up and discussed by the members of the ASWU senate and executive board. On Sep. 17, ASWU’s new Club Funding Accountability Guidelines were voted into policy. The senators unanimously voted in favor of the guidelines.
In the spring, the executive board worked to create a Club Debt Guideline, which outlined how clubs could earn “strikes” for poor financial standing. Strikes could be given to clubs for each semester they went over their allowed budgets or if they used their funds for illegitimate purposes. Those strikes could be rescinded if the club paid ASWU back what they had spent over budget.
Although the Club Debt Guideline was discussed in two ASWU Senate meetings last April, the motion to approve the system was never passed. ASWU Treasurer Peyton Edmunds (’29) stated that in separate discussions with the executive board, there was a collective hesitance in voting the guideline into policy. The main concern was that the guideline “would allow [clubs] to actually… [overspend] more than one time before they just get entirely eliminated.”
Now ASWU has a new accountability system. This new policy is intended to “have certain guidelines that would allow clubs to actually fix their mistakes before they actually are … punished for it,” Edmunds said.
This new system, entitled the ASWU Club Funding Accountability Guidelines, outlines steps for accountability, budget tracking and potential consequences. Similarly to the Club Debt Guidelines, the rules state that a club will not be within good standing if they use ASWU funds for unauthorized purposes, fail to repay their debt or misrepresent their records. The key difference between this new policy and the old guidelines is that there is no strike system; instead, the senate will review club’s financial standings on a case-by-case basis if an issue should arise.
Potential consequences for a club, rather than total termination after three strikes, include suspension, freezing funds until the debt is repaid or banning the club treasurer responsible for any mishandling from being on the club’s executive board the next academic year.
This new policy is set to apply only to Willamette clubs. On-campus organizations, like the Willamette Events Board (WEB) or the Outdoor Program, which are intended to serve the student body as a whole, will not be required to follow these guidelines, according to Edmunds.
ASWU President Katelyn Beissel Rosales (’28), stated that the new language of the Club Funding Accountability Guidelines is intended to be “transparent,” “timeless” and something to be utilized for years to come.
Edmunds shared that “when you do transitions from one leadership team to another, there can be things going through the holes … with the budget tracker, it would be easier for clubs to be able to pass on what they’ve done.”
Both Beissel Rosales and Edmunds hope that this new Accountability Policy can be sustainable for not only clubs as leadership changes every school year, but also for ASWU itself.
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