Financial management is one of the most critical yet overlooked aspects of student government. The way funds are allocated, tracked, and spent directly impacts every student organization and event at GW Law. However, a lack of transparency and oversight in past years has led to serious financial missteps — most notably, last year’s Student Bar Association (SBA) exceeded its budget and unknowingly spent student organization funds.
Transparency from the administration about our finances is what differentiates last year’s SBA from this year’s SBA. Last year, multiple cabinet members were able to bypass the Vice President of Finance and use SBA funds without approval. Most importantly, all cabinet members were spending without knowing how much money they actually had to expend. The inevitable happened — the SBA spent more than what it had budgeted. This year, we faced the repercussions.
The closing balance for last academic year was about $5,000. The problem is that student organizations, excluding SBA, had about $40,000 in their respective R Fund accounts. What does this mean? SBA spent student organizations’ money — at least $35,000 worth. What did that mean for this year? It would have been unconstitutional, as per the SBA Constitution, to “zero” the student organizations’ R Fund, even though it was basically at $0. Instead, the Vice President of Finance and the Senate Finance Committee Chair, Omer Turkomer, set aside $35,000 from the “new money” we received from the law school and university. So instead of starting with $240,000, the Senate Finance Committee had around $205,000 to allocate to student organizations and SBA. Accordingly, there was less money to allocate to student organizations and the SBA, but at least the money fundraised by student organizations was honored and not reduced.
The R Fund and C Fund aren’t real. What I mean by this is that in the eyes of the University, SBA has one account (ironically called our SBA R Fund). Just one. The distinctions between how much Equal Justice Foundation (EJF) or Law Revue have in their accounts, for instance, are internal differences created and managed by SBA. Likewise, the SBA Senate has created a separation between allocated money to student organizations (C Fund) and fundraised money (R Fund). I’ll be even more specific — the only person handling the over 100 “sub-accounts” of all law school student organizations at GW is the Vice President of Finance.
Thankfully, I had a great predecessor who helped me transition into this position. Spencer Sandusky showed me how to track expenses, created the budget sheets still utilized this year, and created an efficient system for placing P-card and reimbursement requests. However, this shouldn’t be the job of a law student. Unless GW Law is willing to hire a full-time staff member to handle all the finances of SBA, or at least work with the Vice President of Finance and provide helpful oversight, we leave big room for error. After all, we didn’t come to law school to be financial advisors.
I know I’ve done an amazing job as Vice President of Finance. I can tell you exactly how much money we have, down to the penny, and account for every expense, fundraiser, and contract signed on behalf of every student organization. I’m proud of the work I have done this year. I do, however, caution that we need greater oversight and realistically, paid staff members to take on the role. Until then, I am confident in the SBA administration I will construct if elected, and most importantly, the Vice President of Finance I will select to assume my current job.
