In these limited economic times, the Editorial Board believes that ASSU student funds should be managed more efficiently, though surely without compromising the essential roles of the respective bodies. The Undergraduate Senate clearly was not without fault in its past term, and the contentions regarding funding and miscommunication with student groups have been well reported by The Daily. However, the Senate’s parallel body in the graduate community, the Graduate Student Council (GSC), is not as closely watched by the undergraduate community, but still holds substantial influence over the disbursal of student funds.

The GSC is often the more fiscally conservative of the two bodies when it comes to funding student groups, public events or other initiatives. This is mostly because the nature of the graduate student experience is very different from that of the undergraduate, and graduate students often do not feel they should pay for services or activities that are not used by the majority of the graduate population. However, when it comes to funding the GSC’s internal structure, they are much more generous. In the 2010 fiscal year, the GSC total budget was $46,005.01. Of that, $9,500 was spent on meeting food, $1,000 for a Food Czar to pick up their food and $6,500 for an orientation trip to Napa.

In the 2011 budget, the GSC allocated $45,951 for its internal operations. There are, again, $6,500 allocated for an orientation trip, $1,000 for the Food Czar and a slightly less outrageous $8,500 for meeting food expenses. The Undergraduate Senate, on the other hand, had a 2010 budget of $36,880 and a budget of $36,100 for 2011. They only spend $1,000 for their orientation retreat and have no meeting food or Food Czar.

This information is especially important because the GSC has recently attempted, rather hypocritically, to overstep its constitutional boundaries in trying to limit how the ASSU Executive uses its discretionary funding, trying to limit cabinet salary and heavily speaking out against the idea of taking $500 out of the Executive salary to fund a Haiti relief fundraising czar. This is especially alarming considering that they are so willing to spend $1,000 to pay a Food Czar to deliver their food, while they are so deeply opposed to paying a student a small incentive for the very difficult effort of fundraising for the Haiti cause.

The Editorial Board encourages the student body to demand accountability from every representative body equally. All students–undergraduate and graduate alike–should call upon the GSC to stop wasting money on frivolous perks and free food. Furthermore, if they insist on dedicating their budget to pay for snacks and vacations, then they have no right to preach fiscal responsibility to the rest of the ASSU. It goes without saying that graduate students are generally older and have more education than undergrads. But as the budgetary policies of the GSC clearly show, these attributes do not make them any more fiscally responsible than undergrads.