USG financially suspends RSO

By Tai Cox

The Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority was placed on a six-month financial suspension during Tuesday night’s Undergraduate Student Government meeting.

According to a November 28 press release, a seven-member USG finance committee found the organization guilty of violating the funding guidelines for the 2012-2013 school year. The guidelines state revenue that is generated from an RSO’s event ticket charge cannot be used to subsidize that event.

The press release said USG was notified Nov. 11 that the organization charged a $5 door fee to the My Sister’s Keeper event, which caused an investigation that was supported by two anonymous witness testimonies.

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Whitney Clark, vice president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, said the event did not have a door fee but instead accepted $5 donations that would go toward the group’s next event during the spring.

Clark said the organization made it clear to USG through documentation when it requested funding in October that any received event donations would be placed in the RSO’s Hepper Foundation fund and used toward future events. She said the original promotional flyers stated the luncheon would have a $5 entry fee, but the organization was unable to reprint corrected flyers because of a lack of time.

Autumn Anthony, member of the graduate chapter of the sorority and secretary in the USG office, said the standard policies and procedures to receive money from USG are located online so they would be easily accessible, but the senate recently revised those guidelines without

placing them back online. “I’m a former senator and I work in the

office, these guidelines were not online in October when the RSO was approved to receive funding,” she said.

USG senate member Adrian Miller said the organization was presented with the guidelines when they received funding approval. But members from the RSO said they were not presented the guidelines.

The senate members then challenged each other for about 20 minutes about whether USG should be held at fault for not publicizing the new guidelines online. To compensate, senate members voted to reduce the previous one-year financial suspension to a six-month suspension from Jan. 1, 2013, to the last day of the spring semester.

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Miller motioned to make an amendment to the USG constitution that would allow the finance committee to watch over all RSOs to ensure allocated money is spent properly, and USG voted to approve it.

“As of right now, people can spend money any way they want and it’s not appropriate because this is money USG is granting to RSOs and it’s getting misused, so I think this is the responsible thing to do in order to keep track of where the money is going,” he said.

The Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity received $305 to go toward its Founders Day Dinner. As of Tuesday’s meeting, USG has $11,113 remaining to allocate to RSOs for the year.

Wish Makers on Campus became an official RSO Tuesday, and Keylah Sykes, a sophomore studying theater, was sworn into the USG senate for East Campus Housing.

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