Budgets and financial statements from the past seven years and meeting minutes going back five years will be posted online after the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) enacted a new transparency policy March 15.
Even details about how student fees and levies are spent will be online, as a result of the policy.
The policy was one of business councillor Jordan Campbell’s campaign promises and he said he’s glad to see it fulfilled.
“CUSA isn’t as open with their information as they should be,” Campbell said.
The change brings CUSA in line with many student unions across the country who already post information about how they spend their money online, he said.
Although council in general voted in favour of the policy, not everyone was in agreement.
CUSA vice-president (student issues) Chantle Beeso said she wanted to release the records only to students, but keep them inaccessible to the university administration. This could be done by allowing students to log in and view the information, she said.
“It makes no sense to me that if we’ve spent however much fighting the university last year that we would just offer up our audit statements,” Beeso said.
The administration collects fees from students on behalf of CUSA. During the fall term of 2010, the Board of Governors withheld the fees after the student union refused to release their financial statements.
CUSA spent thousands of dollars fighting administration until they eventually released the approximately $7 million collected fees.
“We’re an autonomous student body. We’re an autonomous organization. We owe nothing to the university,” Beeso said.
Those conflicts could have been avoided by just being more transparent in the first place, Campbell said.
“Being transparent and open like a non-profit should be is probably the first step if you want to prevent those kinds of things from happening,” he said.
President-elect Alexander Golovko said he thinks the new policy will help get more students involved with their student government.
“For the first time, the membership would be openly aware of how exactly their money is being spent and what takes place in CUSA council discussions, Golovko said.
For now, CUSA has two months to post the records. Until then, students – and the university administration – will have to wait.
