Last week, members of the Campus Women's Center celebrated reinstatement of funding for their group for the next two years. An undercover audit showing the CWC followed through with direct services they claim to provide, sealed the deal for CWC and ensured the group the $100,000 they requested.
Although we are glad CWC's funding was approved, using an undercover audit as the lynchpin for whether or not to grant funding is problematic on many fronts.
According to e-mail correspondence between SSFC Chair Matt Manes and Accountability Liaison Brenden Leib, the audit itself seemed to consist of a stroll through the CWC office that ended with Leib requesting to join a peer council advising group. According to Manes, if the SSFC had not received validation the CWC provided the services they said, it is ""highly questionable"" whether CWC would have received funds.
It is troublesome that one person's anecdotal experience in the CWC office and his review of CWC's website was enough to decide whether or not the group would get funding. A friendly encounter with a CWC member and a paragraph-long e-mail ""report"" of the experience should not have so much clout when it comes to thousands of dollars of segregated fees.
However this is not Leib's fault. Manes' decision to conduct an undercover audit of CWC without the knowledge of CWC or the other SSFC committee members sounds a lot like ignorant kids playing ""spy."" The decision to only audit CWC rather than all GSSF groups is also alarming. SSFC member Aliyya Terry said all GSSF groups should receive the ""same level of scrutiny,"" and we agree that targeting some groups and not others is an unfair way to determine funding eligibility.
Conducting audits is an important way to ensure accountability among GSSF groups. However, if SSFC wants to conduct audits in the future, it should tell all GSSF groups at the beginning of the semester that they will be audited, and all members of the committee should be told when and where the audits will take place.
Instead of taking one person for his word, a formalized approach with written procedures should be used for all audits. The accountability liaison should face questions from all SSFC members after the audit is conducted and members of the GSSF groups should be able to review their audit report.
When it comes down to it, an ""audit"" conducted without any real approved procedures and a paragraph-long e-mail from Leib determined where $100,000 worth of segregated fees went. It was poor judgment on the part of Manes to use this e-mailed audit report as the determining factor for funding, and it was irresponsible for him to conduct the audit without the knowledge of the committee. We hope other SSFC members will help keep this watchdog position in check in the future.
