Friday, April 16, 2010
Now that's a press release
Corinna Cohn is taking her cases to the court of public opinion. Maybe the Ostrich Times will decide this is worth covering now. (Disclosure: Cohn is a contributor to this blog.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STUDENT GOVERNMENT AT UNR SPENT $1.6 MILLION ILLEGALLY
A bill authorizing spending for the Associated Students of the University of Nevada (“ASUN”) during the 2008-2009 fiscal year was one of nineteen bills the ASUN Judicial Council has ruled was illegally enacted. The ruling means that the Association never approved its $1.6M budget in accordance with its constitutional requirement. Board of Regents bylaws require expenditures be approved by the student association in order to guarantee financial accountability.
The rulings follow from a series of complaints filed in March 2009 by Corinna Cohn, a 2009 UNR graduate, who charged ASUN officers with violating provisions related to the Nevada Open Meeting Law after the ASUN Senate established a pattern of not publishing accurate meeting agendas and minutes, and for not following the Association’s own procedures for legally enacting legislation. The Council released its opinions this week after ASUN officers wrote letters admitting their errors and after the Council found gross errors in essential processes.
Cohn filed the complaints after UNR administrators informed her that they would not interfere with what is essentially a student affair until the Association’s Judicial Council made a ruling on whether any ASUN laws had been broken. However, Regents policies require administrators to serve as a check on the student government to ensure ASUN conducts its business according to both state law and association rules.
The ruling means that any expenses paid by ASUN during the 2008-2009 fiscal year were done so without legal authorization. Examples include contracts for goods and services, operating expenses for the student newspaper, grants to school clubs, and salaries paid to student workers and professional administrators.
The University recently announced plans to reduce its budget by $11 million to meet requirements set by the Nevada legislature during its March special session.
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