Let me attempt to explain how we fund organizations in my student government. At the beginning of next semester, we ask every one of over 150 organizations to submit a so called "allocation packet". What this entails is predicting every event that an organization will do for the entire fiscal year. Hmmm, you might ask? What if organizations add or subtract an event? In this case, we allow some flexibility, but you can't spend the money off campus and you can't spend the money on alcohol or anything that you can keep (just think how much money would be spent if we funded every organizations T-shirts or what not).
There's a lot of other little rules, but the stickler for the "open sunshine" people are my committee's "confidential criteria". My Financial Appropriations Committee, i.e. FAC, uses a standard level of funding on items like food, decorations, and miscellaneous rentals. While FAC is privileged to know that info, none of the organizations are. I understand this causes it to seem that FAC is arbitrary in doling out those amounts to organizations. To some extent it is. But to a greater extent, it undercuts padding. What I'm saying is that if organizations knew that they could get a million dollars for food for an event, then it's in human nature to pad your numbers to get a million.
I know there's argument that you might as well make them open so people know how much they can get. To me, that opens up a problem that I wouldn't want any FAC chair to face. If you tell exactly how much someone get, are they not obligated to spend that money for the exact amount that you gave them? Then we'd have to audit every event, and that's too much work. If you're going to trust organizations, then that isn't any different from the status quo.
Basically, I need some convincing that the confidential criteria is unnecessary. But heck, our tax code is open and it's still confusing enough that people suspect it. I'm just not sure, and in this case I've seen the status quo do its work. I just think we need to educate people on how the system works already.
( My post on our intragovernment boards explaining my viewpoint )![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
