Each semester, the SEC Allocations Committee (AC), part of the Student Executive Council, publishes their audit report detailing the funding that broad organizations received and how they spent it. These numbers give an insight into the often complicated and convoluted world of the Student Activities Fee (SAF) and shows where a small part of Case Western Reserve University students’ money is going and how it is being spent.
Chair of the AC Anshul Nayak, a third-year finance and pre-med student, emphasised the importance of the AC audit results and their publication. He said, “I believe the student body has a right to know where and how their money is being used. I hope to believe that our audits bring more insight into whether or not umbrella organizations are using their money efficiently.”
Previous audits have revealed large issues in organizations’ spending: Last spring, the AC found $200,000 unaccounted for by the University Program Board (UPB). The most recent report, published in February in an email to CWRU students, detailed spending for the previous spring semester. Previously, audits were semesterly, but they are changing to become annual.
“For starters, the audits we carry out help ensure that umbrella organizations efficiently spend their allocations from the Student Activities Fund. In the past, we have seen umbrella organizations maintain significant rollover, and our work helps mitigate that issue in order to ensure that student tuition is properly spent,” Nayak said. “We have also seen cases where expenses aren’t tracked properly, and our work helps umbrella organizations mitigate these issues. In addition, the audit process has helped certain organizations create more efficient budgets to better track their expenses. Last but not least, AC audits help umbrella organizations and SPR get a better sense of where money should be spent.”
Within the audit, links are provided to each of the board organization’s spring 2024 budgets, which include lists of authorized purchases and projected budgets for the fall 2024 semester. For any direct spending accomplished by board organizations, these audit results can allow students to see the costs of some of the most popular campus events from a year ago.
Many of the eye-catching purchases, and often the largest impact ones, are done by UPB: Not only do they have the largest share of the SAF—more than the Undergraduate Student Government (USG)—but as they do not supervise any direct clubs, all of their money is reported in this audit. A year ago, UPB spent $50,000 to contract Matteo Lane for last year’s Spring Comedian, while $115,000 was spent to attract Colin Jost the year before. Other big-name artists, such as Waka Flocka Flame, came in at a similar lower cost, like $35,000.
The audit also shows additional large expenses by UPB: The two spring break trips last year cost the organization $110,219.43, while UPB only received $41,600 off of ticket sales, putting the rest on the SAF bill. Similarly, the Kalahari trip cost $25,368.25 for UPB, with $5,760 in ticket sales from 481 tickets, resulting in $19,608.25 being paid for by the general SAF.
Similar spending can also be seen with various campus traditions, which at CWRU are overwhelmingly administered by the Class Officer Collective. Last year’s Snowball dance cost $41,817.70, and the Hudson Relays cost $25,081.04. Other recurring events, such as Spring Formal Sorority Recruitment, cost just over $11,000 of student money from Interfraternity Congress/Panhellenic Council (IFC/PHC). Last year’s Springfest spent $122,545.54, of which $40,000 was spent for their headlining artist, Bea Miller.
Delving into the data provided, interesting spending patterns begin to emerge from board level organizations. Looking at the amount spent on catering from restaurants, both local and chain ones, organizations spent upward of $148,000 of SAF money, according to all money reported by the audit. The largest of these restaurants was by far Barrio Tacos, which received at least $14,836 of student money. In second place and third place are Mitchell’s Ice Cream at $8,671.57 and Chipotle at $6,337.92, respectively. Thwing Study Over (TSO), one of the largest food events, only spent $13,783.80 on food last spring, though they did not specify how much they spent at each restaurant.
The other interesting anecdote is the amount of money spent on merchandise throughout the semester. For example, while UPB spent over $10,000 on just its spring giveaway, all board organizations combined only spent $9,077 on merchandise for themselves and their executive boards. This is when many organizations, such as TSO, budgeted money for committee merchandise but did not spend money in that category. What this suggests is a tightening of fiscal belts of board organizations, as rollover from past semesters starts to decrease. The report applauds organizations that spent into their rollover, such as COC and IFC/PHC, while suggesting others, such as University Media Board, stop it from growing.
These statistics only include the board-level organizations and their respective committees. Only one organization that manages other clubs, the Undergraduate Diversity Collaborative, reported club-level spending data, which was not factored into the analysis.