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The Beast Within

The self-proclaimed defender of student interests has been caught with its hand in the cookie jar. They think it's kind of fun to spend recklessly.

Campus liberals have always been an arrogant bunch. But the would-be politicians involved with the United States Student Association take first prize in the race to rip off the student body. High-ranking ASUO officials improperly used student fees to fund the USSA's left-wing agenda. The Incidental Fee Committee has asked ASUO Finance Coordinator Francis Neo to freeze all of the USSA's IFC-funded accounts and launch an "official investigation" into the financial dealings of students involved with the national lobbying organization.

IFC Chair Jian Liu, who prompted the request for an investigation, explained, "I have sufficient evidence and believe there is some mismanagement of funds." His accusations involve top ASUO officials who sit on the USSA national board of directors--ex-Vice President Diana Collins Puente, Safety Affairs Coordinator Troy Shields, Multicultural Advocate Eden Ajrian Omari and Women's Advocate Michelle Parks.

The IFC's request for an investigation focuses on four issues: Collins Puente, Shields and Ajrian Omari spent approximately $450 of ASUO money on USSA phone calls without proper authorization. Before that, according to Liu, USSA members violated IFC regulations by sending four board members to USSA national functions in August and October. Parks used IFC funds to attend those two conferences while she was not a registered student. The request also cited the USSA's "campus related outreach" account, from which USSA delegates have--contrary to IFC regulations--withdrawn $355 to attend the USSA's Legislative Conference in Washington, DC this spring.

In addition to the IFC's charges, the Commentator has obtained evidence that some USSA board members abused their power to retaliate against an IFC member who refused to vote the USSA additional funding.

Lying, Cheating & Stealing
A national lobbying group consisting of approximately 300 colleges and universities, the USSA is represented on campus by a handful of students involved with the pressure groups, programs, and fundraising efforts connected to the Washington, DC-based organization. Board members at the University of Oregon are responsible for funding the USSA and its projects with student fees supplied by the IFC. Last spring the IFC allocated nearly $11,000 to University students involved with the USSA.

ASUO Women's Advocate Michelle Parks spent IFC funds, including $390 for travel and $100 for the USSA registration fee to attend a ten-day USSA National Congress in Los Angeles last August, where she was elected to the USSA board, and the $301 to attend a USSA board meeting in Washington, DC last October--even though she was not a registered student at either time.

The ASUO Constitution forbids any non-student from drawing an IFC-funded stipend. "If you cannot draw an IFC stipend," Liu said, "that should extend to all [use of] incidental fees, unless otherwise specified by the IFC."

Associate Registrar Kate Johnson told the Commentator that Parks had not registered for the 1993 spring, summer or fall terms. When confronted, Parks said that the registrar's office was either mistaken or lying. Parks said that she had requested that the registrar put "a restriction on my file" to prevent scrutiny of her academic status. After the Commentator's interview with Parks, the registrar's office refused to provide any information regarding her.

ASUO President Eric Bowen, who will travel to the USSA Legislative Conference this spring, claims he only discovered recently that Parks failed to register fall term. "I'm currently in the process of talking to her to find out if there were any violations. I don't know what we'll do. I'm not sure there were any violations."

In addition to travelling to the USSA functions in August and October, Parks held the stipended positions of ASUO non-traditional student coordinator until mid-October and then that of ASUO Women's Advocate, which she presently holds. Neo said, "As far as I know, she was given some money" in both the summer and fall terms for those positions. Because Parks has requested all her records sealed, the EMU Payroll Office could not confirm Neo's statement.

Phone Fraud
Parks is not the only ASUO official-cum-USSA-board member involved in underhanded activity to benefit the national organization. On January 12, Bowen transferred $500 from the USSA's newly created long-distance account to the ASUO. The transfer reimbursed the ASUO after Shields, Collins Puente and Ajrian Omari spent most of the ASUO's annual long-distance budget last fall--the majority of it on USSA business--using their ASUO access codes. Assuming that each of the three USSA board members made similar amounts of legitimate ASUO long-distance calls as the seven other ASUO officials using the account, USSA business made up about $450, or 90 percent, of their long-distance spending. These three officials managed to liquidate 80.9 percent of the ASUO's annual long-distance budget in less than three months.

Collins Puente made $43 in calls to USSA board member "J.T." Jones in Ypsilanti, Mich.--including two calls totaling over five hours. Bowen confirmed that "J.T. is a student at Eastern Michigan State University who Diana has a relationship with." Other students invloved with the USSA identified Jones as Collins Puente's "boyfriend." Collins Puente refused to comment.

President Bowen could have made an issue of the USSA's long-distance spending habits--but he side-stepped the embarrassment of his staff's misdeeds by quietly accepting the funds transfer. The matter could be resolved because, after the USSA board members ran up the ASUO phone bill, the IFC created a long-distance budget for the USSA and filled it with $795 from the ASUO surplus account. The USSA reimbursed the ASUO long-distance account using this $795.

Following Orders
The USSA puts high value on students' fee money--over two-thirds of the organization's $368,262 national budget derives from membership dues and delegates' registration fees for national conferences. This includes a $5500 membership charge each year from all eight Oregon schools, which re represented collectively through the Oregon Student Lobby. According to Parks, Oregon is one of the highest represented states on the USSA board with eight members, four of whom are UO students. USSA headquarters, according to VP Arellano, set a "target number" of 12 delegates to attend this spring's conference from the UO.

At the January 11 IFC meeting, the first of the budget season, Collins Puente came before the committee with a special request of $3,450 to send an additional five delegates--for a total of 12--to the USSA's annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, over spring break.

Liu pointed out during the hearing that the request involved a "conflict of interest"--because five of the six IFC members had applied to go to the USSA conference and "could potentially benefit personally" from their votes. IFC Vice-Chair Joey Lyons as well as members Kris Cornwall, Shannon Wall, Jack Orozco and Samir Kumar had applied to be USSA delegates. Only Liu had no connection to the USSA.

Puente argued for the additional funds because the group exhausted its account sending more board members than the IFC authorized--four instead of two--to the national functions in August and October. Liu told the Commentator that USSA members "said, 'Look, we have this much money to send people to conferences, let's use it all this one time... then we can go back for a special request and get more.'" This was improper, Liu asserted, because last year's IFC required specifically when and how the USSA should spend its budget--and it specified that the budget should last all year.

Although those expenditures were improper, Liu explained that he didn't object because he had not even seen the request prior to the meeting and thus lacked sufficient information. IFC members voted to allow Collins Puente to make the special request even though she had not filed it with the IFC 48 hours in advance as is usually required.

Cornwall spearheaded the support for the USSA's special request, she first motioned that the committee should hear the request and then sung the organization's praises. It was important that USSA boosters give solid evidence that the USSA benefits all UO students, despite the fact that less than. 0.3 percent of the USSA's expenditures this year have been toward campus-related activities. Chief among Cornwall's evidence was that the federal government selected the UO as one of the first campuses to benefit from the new direct-loan program.

"[The USSA] is one of the best things that happens for students at this University. I wish we could send more [than 12] members... You can see the benefit [to UO students] of sending delegates to the USSA Legislative Conference from last year is the direct-loan program. The UO direct-loan is an astonishing achievement on the part of the people who went to USSA to lobby for national issues," Cornwall said.

Contrary to both Cornwall's and Collins Puente's claims to the IFC, however, USSA Vice President said that the USSA "lobbied for it in general, but had nothing to do with getting direct-loans for any specific campus."

Cornwall explained, saying several UO students had independently lobbied for the program, although she was not personally among them.

Lyons moved that the IFC grant the USSA its full request to send five people to the conference. Cornwall seconded. Liu showed less enthusiasm, saying, "Everything else is being scaled down [in spending]. We should conserve on this matter, too,"--a statement that every group coming before the IFC this year will hear. Liu made a "friendly amendment" to Lyons' motion, reducing the number of additional delegates to four and the dollar amount by almost $700. Had Liu's amendment passed, USSA headquarters would have been displeased with the smaller share of student fees.

Cornwall withdrew her second. The IFC voted in favor of the reduced request, with Orozco and Cornwall voting against and Wall abstaining. But then Lyons changed his 'yes' vote to a 'no' and Wall changed her abstention to a 'no,' defeating the motion--in the end, only Liu and Kumar supported the more frugal measure. Then Cornwell, Lyons, Wall and Orozco granted the original five-person request. The IFC had already transferred $2,352 to the USSA for other uses, putting the total amount the ASUO added to the USSA budget this year at $5,802.

When USSA delegates withdrew $3,450 to pay (in advance) for the trip, they inexplicably took $355 from the "campus related outreach" account--although sending delegates to Washington, DC has nothing to do with campus outreach.

Shields explained this irregularity saying, "We did that to exhaust the [lodging and registration] account," which, after withdrawing $1,625 to fund USSA registration fees for the spring event, contains only $4.

Lydia Lerma, who sat on last year's IFC which created the campus outreach account, said that the IFC's intention had been to force the USSA to spend more money on campus-related issues. She said that the USSA would "violate the IFC's intention" if it failed, by the end of this school year, to spend the full contents of the account on campus.

Henchpeople
A four-person selection committee consisting of Bowen, Shields, Collins Puente and Rob Alvarez, a USSA board member from Rutgers University in New Jersey, chose delegates to attend the conference this spring. According to Shields, the committee did not finalize the list of delegates until Wednesday, the day after the IFC voted on the USSA's special request. This is a vital point--if IFC members had known that the list of delegates was finalized before the hearing and kept secret, they could have voted their consciences without fear of retribution from their USSA higher-ups.

Of the IFC members who applied, only Kumar was not chosen to go to Washington, DC. A source who wishes to be identified only as "a student government leader" came forward to the Commentator--and said that he suspects the USSA selection committee of excluding Kumar because he voted against the five-delegate version of the special request. The source said, "After [Kumar] objected to [the five-person] request he was chosen not to go. It's apparent... those who said 'yes' went, those who said 'no' didn't."

Although the source provided no proof that the USSA selection committee blackballed Kumar because of his vote, he explained that "I would assume that is a pretty typical practice for any student government official."

Kumar said, "I voted 'no' on USSA, and to some extent, I regret it." Although he would not speculate on why the USSA selection committee excluded him from the conference, Kumar did say that he "objected to the way they made their request... they should have finalized the list before they came and asked us to vote on it."

Only the selection committee was present when it finalized the list of delegates, and no minutes were taken. All the available evidence, however, is consistent with the source's allegations.

Shields refused to say whether any IFC members were among those taken off the list after the hearing. Bowen said that the USSA selection committee blackballing Kumar is "absolutely not true." He said, "I didn't have the results of who voted, and neither did the committee. There is no way that could have happened." He's mistaken--both Collins Puente and Alvarez were present at the IFC hearing when Kumar voted against the USSA's wishes.

"It really poses a lot of questions--is there a conflict of interest?" Liu remarked. "To reverse such an error it must go to a higher authority. The real place to solve that case is the Constitution Court. If the Constitution Court rules that there is a conflict of interest, then it will invalidate [the USSA] special request," he said.

Too Little, Too Late
Since that hearing, both Lyons and Wall have recanted. Lyons said, "I've realized that I really shouldn't have voted on the USSA special request... it's a question of my morality. I've considered not going to DC because of it." He explained that he and other USSA applicants should have abstained from the vote because it represented a conflict of interest. He also said that the IFC should have asked the USSA delegates to seek outside funding.

"We made a mistake in voting on it," Wall conceded. "They may have lacked foresight [exhausting their travel account] but we also lacked the judgement to make the right decision," she said. Wall pointed out that "all [the USSA delegates on the IFC] have to do is abstain... we still have quorum as long as we're voting."

In its request for an investigation, the IFC wrote, "Most of the USSA activities and board members generated from the ASUO executive. With former vice-president of ASUO and other ASUO executives as USSA board members, the Check and Balance system does not exist. USSA should have an independent leadership." The IFC, despite its recent good intentions under Liu's leadership, has nearly as many ties to the USSA as the ASUO officials who they want investigated.

When Liu first brought the issue of a special investigation before the IFC January 25, Lyons was quick to criticize the IFC's actions. Liu retorted, "You say that it's a conflict of interest, but your vote did not reflect that." Leaving the ASUO and IFC alone to oversee the USSA's affairs is like leaving the fox to guard the hen house--because a significant number of IFC and ASUO officials are involved with the USSA.

Noble talk aside, the IFC approved in the February 1 hearing $1083 to the Black Women's Association to send two delegates to the USSA conference this spring. It seems the fox is still stealing student-fee eggs.

Special Investigators
Neo said that he would assemble a non-biased team of special investigators, including faculty and students with financial expertise, to scrutinize the USSA's handling of IFC funds. Neo said, "In this case the IFC itself feels there are grounds for an audit. Then I will order an audit." He explained, "I am now considering freezing the funds. At first I did not consider it, I didn't think the situation was serious enough. I'm looking at the end of the audit... looking at the allegations in writing and some fresh allegations. At the end we may recommend that some funds be given back... Right now I'm doing an internal investigation. Maybe just before we do an audit I will freeze funds." He said he would not reveal the nature of these "fresh allegations" until his office has substantiated them.

"What we are touching here, we are touching on a much larger issue. It has been a moot issue for years--how student leaders are accountable," Neo said. He explained that if the investigation proves financial misdoing, he would "demand student leaders pay back some money. As far as my historical memory goes, the most we have ever done is ask student leaders to pay back money."

Although the ASUO finance coordinator answers to Bowen, Neo said that he will not let politics affect the investigation. "My ultimate accountability is not to the ASUO executive... my final accountability is to the student body. I made the decision purely on a financial point of view. I will not allow political pressure to compromise the financial department. I will defend the professionalism of my department by resigning if I'm being made to do things that are political," she said.

These ASUO officials-cum-USSA activists have demonstrated that their loyalties are unevenly divided between the student body that pays the bills and their political cronies at USSA headquarters. Officials responsible for serving the students of this university should not continue to let the USSA's serious and blatant misdeeds go unacknowledged.

Friederich von Carp was News Editor of the Oregon Commentator at the time of the first printing of this article‹Feb. 7, 1994