My suspicions that GSA was receiving money from the ASUN Bookstore, even though an agreement to provide for that revenue sharing was not renewed in 2008 (first reported here), is now confirmed with official sources.
According to the annual financial statements of student governments prepared for the Regents, GSA received over $24,000 from the bookstore in fiscal year 2009. Why GSA received this money, given the fact that the revenue sharing agreement was never renewed, is beyond me. Any enterprising ASUN senator want to look into this, perhaps a member of the Budget and Finance Committee?
Showing posts with label ASUN Bookstore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ASUN Bookstore. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
GSA and the ASUN Bookstore (Or, who'd you say is getting ASUN's money?)
The Associated Students of the University of Nevada, through several complicated relationships, owns the ASUN Bookstore housed in the Joe Crowley Student Union. Memos of understanding and practice indicate that this is the case. ASUN purchased the bookstore in 1951.
The ASUN and the GSA did not always used to exist as separate entitites. In 1952, the graduate students split, establishing the Graduate Student Association (GSA). Unfortunately, the graduate students negelected to realize at the time that they never retained any say over the bookstore when they left. A bad move when you consider how much revenue the bookstore now generates.
Finally realizing their mistake, in 1997 GSA and ASUN entered into a profit sharing agreement regarding the bookstore. The agreement provided that a certain share of the revenue from the bookstore would be provided to GSA based on a formula. The agreement provided that it was up for renewal in five years, and it took the affirmative votes of both the ASUN and GSA legislative branches to effectuate renewal. The agreement was renewed for five years in 2003.
Another five years passed, and during the 75th Session of the ASUN Senate (2007-2008), the agreement was up again for renewal. On April 2, 2008, I introduced a bill to direct the President of ASUN to take any and all action necessary to terminate the agreement. As far as I know, the agreement was never renewed prior to the deadline imposed by the agreement itself. It would have had to come to my committee (Budget and Finance) for a vote, and it never did. Thus, I feel confident in assuming the agreement no longer is legally binding. Therefore, the agreement is void due to its its failure to be renewed.
Knowing that, now I read the Sagebrush, making the astonishing claim in its editorial this week that the GSA still receives money from the ASUN Bookstore. Huh-ba-wha? If that's the case, then I'd like to know how and why GSA has still been receiving money from ASUN's bookstore. This should be the perfect thing for the Budget and Finance Committee to look into while everyone else is worrying about Joint Vision 2017 (and until a couple of the other committees figure out that they have concurrent jurisdiction over Joint Vision, but that might be a little too complicated for right now).
The ASUN and the GSA did not always used to exist as separate entitites. In 1952, the graduate students split, establishing the Graduate Student Association (GSA). Unfortunately, the graduate students negelected to realize at the time that they never retained any say over the bookstore when they left. A bad move when you consider how much revenue the bookstore now generates.
Finally realizing their mistake, in 1997 GSA and ASUN entered into a profit sharing agreement regarding the bookstore. The agreement provided that a certain share of the revenue from the bookstore would be provided to GSA based on a formula. The agreement provided that it was up for renewal in five years, and it took the affirmative votes of both the ASUN and GSA legislative branches to effectuate renewal. The agreement was renewed for five years in 2003.
Another five years passed, and during the 75th Session of the ASUN Senate (2007-2008), the agreement was up again for renewal. On April 2, 2008, I introduced a bill to direct the President of ASUN to take any and all action necessary to terminate the agreement. As far as I know, the agreement was never renewed prior to the deadline imposed by the agreement itself. It would have had to come to my committee (Budget and Finance) for a vote, and it never did. Thus, I feel confident in assuming the agreement no longer is legally binding. Therefore, the agreement is void due to its its failure to be renewed.
Knowing that, now I read the Sagebrush, making the astonishing claim in its editorial this week that the GSA still receives money from the ASUN Bookstore. Huh-ba-wha? If that's the case, then I'd like to know how and why GSA has still been receiving money from ASUN's bookstore. This should be the perfect thing for the Budget and Finance Committee to look into while everyone else is worrying about Joint Vision 2017 (and until a couple of the other committees figure out that they have concurrent jurisdiction over Joint Vision, but that might be a little too complicated for right now).
Read more...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Who Speaks for the Senate?
Short answer: In general, the Senate does.
In our last post, we briefly mentioned how the ASUN's statement regarding alleged workers' rights violations by a manufacturer of Russell Athletic apparel, of which the ASUN Bookstore is a customer, raised some interesting issues because of who signed onto the message. Sen. Brandon Bishop (Liberal Arts), who is the Senate's parliamentarian and chairman of the Phantom Committee (Interim Operations Committee), signed on to the statement with ASUN President Eli Reilly.
The statement said that "members of the Associated Student (sic) Senate have conducted thorough research and analysis" of several reports alleging Russell Athletics' misconduct. The statement went on to say that "the Associated Students of the University have instructed the ASUN Bookstore to cease all orders of Russell Athletic merchandise. Furthermore, Marie Stewart[,] the Manager of the Associated Student (sic) Bookstore has been instructed by the Association to search for a new supplier of Wolf Pack Merchandise." The message also relays that "[a]t the instruction of the Association, the Bookstore will cease ordering from Russell, all reserves of merchandise from Russell Athletic will continue to be sold by the Bookstore as to not impact scholarship funding for the Association."
The message concludes that "[u]pon the conclusion of the Senate of the Associated Students investigation into the actions of Russell Corporation a final recommendation will be released," presumably to follow up on a recommendation request from the President of the University (a recommendation regarding what specifically is unknown).
The statement raises a few issues. First, the statement, in several places, mentions that the ASUN has directed its bookstore manager to stop ordering from Russell Athletic, to search for a new supplier of apparel, but to sell off all of the inventory in stock, and that once all Russell stock has been sold, the purchase or sale of Russell gear is banned. Under what authority, explicit or implicit, did President Reilly have to unilaterally direct to the bookstore these policies? Very little statutory law enacted by the Senate discusses the formal relationship between the bookstore and the government of the Association. What little law does exist defines reporting and budget requirements. So the question remains, does the President have authority over the bookstore?
If you're of the view that the bookstore is part of the executive branch of ASUN, and that the bookstore manager reports to the ASUN President, then it would be reasonable to assume that the ASUN President has authority to direct the manager what to do, who to use as suppliers, what to buy and sell, etc. However, the relationship isn't that simple.
In reality, the bookstore manager is just another University administrator. She reports to the Associate Vice President of Student Life services, Gerald Marczynski, the same person to whom the director of the Associated Students/Student Activities, Sandy Rodriguez, reports to. The Associated Students "owns" the bookstore, true, but more formally the relationship is closer to how the student body of the University "owns" the student union: the Board of Regents hold it in trust for the ASUN. With that understanding, the relationship between ASUN and its bookstore, and the President and the bookstore's manager, gets a little fuzzy.
Let's compare it to a similar relationship: ASUN to its director, Sandy Rodriguez. The director of ASUN is also the director of the University unit known as Student Activities. It's a fine distinction, one that even we don't have a firm grasp on--it's hard to tell where ASUN ends and Student Activities begins. We do know that ASUN foots the bill for all of it. Rodriguez reports to Marczynski in the same way that Stewart (the bookstore manager) does. However, there is an implicit understanding that the ASUN director's job is to carry out the day-to-day functions of the Association, under the direction of the Association's leadership (i.e. the elected and appointed student officers). It shouldn't be much of a stretch to believe that the relationship should work the same way with the bookstore and its manager.
More reality: historically, ASUN has left the management, operation, and policy choices regarding the bookstore to its management. Think of it like this: ASUN is the owner but leaves the management up to someone else. Thus, it should be rare for the owner to intervene in the management of the operation.
It's pretty clear that ASUN owns the bookstore. It's less clear to what extent ASUN has authority over its operation. It's not inherently unreasonable to state that the ASUN President has the authority to direct the bookstore to do certain things. However, given that the ASUN Senate has never defined the relationship, or put into law the current relationship, the ASUN President is acting in a gray area.
Now, as far as the Senate is concerned, this should be a big clue to wake up and legislate. The Senate is the policy making branch of the Association, and it should make some policy defining the relationships, especially respecting the ASUN President's authority over the bookstore.
This finally brings us to Sen. Bishop. The statement talks about how the Senate has "conducted thorough research and analysis" of the issues surrounding Russell. The message seems to imply that the Senate had some say in directing the bookstore to take the aforementioned actions regarding Russell Athletic merchandise. Notice that the statement doesn't say that "I (President Reilly)" or "we (Reilly and Bishop)" have directed the actions. It says "the Association" has.
The fact that Bishop signed off on the statement would seem to imply that the Senate was behind it, yet (as far as we can tell) the Senate has taken no action on this item. The Phantom (Interim) Committee has only discussed the matter. Keep in mind, the Interim Committee has no authority to do things on its own. It's just like any other Senate committee: it takes the Senate's action to give effect to a committee's recommendations. Since the Senate has not acted on this, it seems clear that the Senate is not behind this statement.
Thus, it would appear that Sen. Bishop was a little overzealous in attaching the Senate to it. If Bishop was merely signing onto the parts of the statement indicating that the Senate was investigating, that would be fine, but he signed onto the whole statement. In that case, it might have been better to release two statements: one defining the Senate's role and the other discussing the actions Reilly took.
Another aspect is that the Interim Committee doesn't have any inherent authority to initiate actions. Under the original authorizing resolution adopted during the 75th Senate Session (S. Res. 75-29, page 221 here), the Interim Committee has "the authority specifically to consider legislation from any Standing Committee or discharge any legislation from any Standing Committee with the consent of the Standing Committee chairperson." It appears that the Interim Committee only has authority to consider stuff the other standing committees were handling at the time the Interim Committee existed. Notice the consent of the committee chair involved is required for the Interim Committee to handle a matter. Even under a more expansive view, the Committee can only do things that other committees can do with the consent of the appropriate chair. This is to prevent the Interim Committee from unilaterally depriving a committee of its jurisdiction. Remember, the purpose of the Interim Committee, according to the original resolution, is "to conduct specific business of the Senate Committees during times of break."
Now, as we previously covered here, the Interim Committee right now has no real legal authority because it was never properly constituted. So all of this discussion is pretty much academic.
One last thing to consider, as an aside. The role of the ASUN Bookstore is to serve the university community. It isn't a profit making enterprise, at least not in the traditional sense. The revenue the bookstore generates above and beyond the cost of doing business is reinvested at the University, through scholarships and funding for campus improvements, as directed by ASUN. There used to be a profit sharing agreement with the Graduate Student Association, but it lapsed without being renewed. (Interesting question: any bets as to whether GSA is still getting its cut even though the profit sharing agreement lapsed more than a year ago?)
In our last post, we briefly mentioned how the ASUN's statement regarding alleged workers' rights violations by a manufacturer of Russell Athletic apparel, of which the ASUN Bookstore is a customer, raised some interesting issues because of who signed onto the message. Sen. Brandon Bishop (Liberal Arts), who is the Senate's parliamentarian and chairman of the Phantom Committee (Interim Operations Committee), signed on to the statement with ASUN President Eli Reilly.
The statement said that "members of the Associated Student (sic) Senate have conducted thorough research and analysis" of several reports alleging Russell Athletics' misconduct. The statement went on to say that "the Associated Students of the University have instructed the ASUN Bookstore to cease all orders of Russell Athletic merchandise. Furthermore, Marie Stewart[,] the Manager of the Associated Student (sic) Bookstore has been instructed by the Association to search for a new supplier of Wolf Pack Merchandise." The message also relays that "[a]t the instruction of the Association, the Bookstore will cease ordering from Russell, all reserves of merchandise from Russell Athletic will continue to be sold by the Bookstore as to not impact scholarship funding for the Association."
The message concludes that "[u]pon the conclusion of the Senate of the Associated Students investigation into the actions of Russell Corporation a final recommendation will be released," presumably to follow up on a recommendation request from the President of the University (a recommendation regarding what specifically is unknown).
The statement raises a few issues. First, the statement, in several places, mentions that the ASUN has directed its bookstore manager to stop ordering from Russell Athletic, to search for a new supplier of apparel, but to sell off all of the inventory in stock, and that once all Russell stock has been sold, the purchase or sale of Russell gear is banned. Under what authority, explicit or implicit, did President Reilly have to unilaterally direct to the bookstore these policies? Very little statutory law enacted by the Senate discusses the formal relationship between the bookstore and the government of the Association. What little law does exist defines reporting and budget requirements. So the question remains, does the President have authority over the bookstore?
If you're of the view that the bookstore is part of the executive branch of ASUN, and that the bookstore manager reports to the ASUN President, then it would be reasonable to assume that the ASUN President has authority to direct the manager what to do, who to use as suppliers, what to buy and sell, etc. However, the relationship isn't that simple.
In reality, the bookstore manager is just another University administrator. She reports to the Associate Vice President of Student Life services, Gerald Marczynski, the same person to whom the director of the Associated Students/Student Activities, Sandy Rodriguez, reports to. The Associated Students "owns" the bookstore, true, but more formally the relationship is closer to how the student body of the University "owns" the student union: the Board of Regents hold it in trust for the ASUN. With that understanding, the relationship between ASUN and its bookstore, and the President and the bookstore's manager, gets a little fuzzy.
Let's compare it to a similar relationship: ASUN to its director, Sandy Rodriguez. The director of ASUN is also the director of the University unit known as Student Activities. It's a fine distinction, one that even we don't have a firm grasp on--it's hard to tell where ASUN ends and Student Activities begins. We do know that ASUN foots the bill for all of it. Rodriguez reports to Marczynski in the same way that Stewart (the bookstore manager) does. However, there is an implicit understanding that the ASUN director's job is to carry out the day-to-day functions of the Association, under the direction of the Association's leadership (i.e. the elected and appointed student officers). It shouldn't be much of a stretch to believe that the relationship should work the same way with the bookstore and its manager.
More reality: historically, ASUN has left the management, operation, and policy choices regarding the bookstore to its management. Think of it like this: ASUN is the owner but leaves the management up to someone else. Thus, it should be rare for the owner to intervene in the management of the operation.
It's pretty clear that ASUN owns the bookstore. It's less clear to what extent ASUN has authority over its operation. It's not inherently unreasonable to state that the ASUN President has the authority to direct the bookstore to do certain things. However, given that the ASUN Senate has never defined the relationship, or put into law the current relationship, the ASUN President is acting in a gray area.
Now, as far as the Senate is concerned, this should be a big clue to wake up and legislate. The Senate is the policy making branch of the Association, and it should make some policy defining the relationships, especially respecting the ASUN President's authority over the bookstore.
This finally brings us to Sen. Bishop. The statement talks about how the Senate has "conducted thorough research and analysis" of the issues surrounding Russell. The message seems to imply that the Senate had some say in directing the bookstore to take the aforementioned actions regarding Russell Athletic merchandise. Notice that the statement doesn't say that "I (President Reilly)" or "we (Reilly and Bishop)" have directed the actions. It says "the Association" has.
The fact that Bishop signed off on the statement would seem to imply that the Senate was behind it, yet (as far as we can tell) the Senate has taken no action on this item. The Phantom (Interim) Committee has only discussed the matter. Keep in mind, the Interim Committee has no authority to do things on its own. It's just like any other Senate committee: it takes the Senate's action to give effect to a committee's recommendations. Since the Senate has not acted on this, it seems clear that the Senate is not behind this statement.
Thus, it would appear that Sen. Bishop was a little overzealous in attaching the Senate to it. If Bishop was merely signing onto the parts of the statement indicating that the Senate was investigating, that would be fine, but he signed onto the whole statement. In that case, it might have been better to release two statements: one defining the Senate's role and the other discussing the actions Reilly took.
Another aspect is that the Interim Committee doesn't have any inherent authority to initiate actions. Under the original authorizing resolution adopted during the 75th Senate Session (S. Res. 75-29, page 221 here), the Interim Committee has "the authority specifically to consider legislation from any Standing Committee or discharge any legislation from any Standing Committee with the consent of the Standing Committee chairperson." It appears that the Interim Committee only has authority to consider stuff the other standing committees were handling at the time the Interim Committee existed. Notice the consent of the committee chair involved is required for the Interim Committee to handle a matter. Even under a more expansive view, the Committee can only do things that other committees can do with the consent of the appropriate chair. This is to prevent the Interim Committee from unilaterally depriving a committee of its jurisdiction. Remember, the purpose of the Interim Committee, according to the original resolution, is "to conduct specific business of the Senate Committees during times of break."
Now, as we previously covered here, the Interim Committee right now has no real legal authority because it was never properly constituted. So all of this discussion is pretty much academic.
One last thing to consider, as an aside. The role of the ASUN Bookstore is to serve the university community. It isn't a profit making enterprise, at least not in the traditional sense. The revenue the bookstore generates above and beyond the cost of doing business is reinvested at the University, through scholarships and funding for campus improvements, as directed by ASUN. There used to be a profit sharing agreement with the Graduate Student Association, but it lapsed without being renewed. (Interesting question: any bets as to whether GSA is still getting its cut even though the profit sharing agreement lapsed more than a year ago?)
Read more...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
It's what it doesn't say that matters
Recently, the Associated Students released a statement by ASUN President Eli Reilly denouncing Russell Athletic for its alleged workers' rights violations at its recently closed Jerzees de Honduras plant. ASUN, through its bookstore, is a licensee and customer of Russell Athletic merchandise. Apparently, the ASUN Senate has been conducting an investigation into these matters, although it must've been a big secret since it never appeared on an agenda (which is interesting because Reilly's statement says that "members of the Associated Student (sic) Senate have conducted thorough research and analysis" of this issue.
The matter of the workers' rights violations isn't what is interesting to us, although it is good that the ASUN will be denouncing Russell Athletic's behavior by taking their business elsewhere. What's interesting is the fact that this joint statement between ASUN's executive and legislative branches wasn't signed on to by the Senate's leader, Gracie Geremia. Instead it was Phantom Committee chairman Brandon Bishop who joined Reilly in the statement. What, Gracie not good enough?
What's even more interesting is that the statement implies that the Senate stands behind the message, yet there's been no action by the Senate on this subject.
The matter of the workers' rights violations isn't what is interesting to us, although it is good that the ASUN will be denouncing Russell Athletic's behavior by taking their business elsewhere. What's interesting is the fact that this joint statement between ASUN's executive and legislative branches wasn't signed on to by the Senate's leader, Gracie Geremia. Instead it was Phantom Committee chairman Brandon Bishop who joined Reilly in the statement. What, Gracie not good enough?
What's even more interesting is that the statement implies that the Senate stands behind the message, yet there's been no action by the Senate on this subject.
Read more...
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