[9] in UA Financial Policy Review Committee
Re: Committee Membership, Scheduling, and Topics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (catherio)
Sun Jun 14 08:22:32 2009
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:22:25 -0400
From: catherio <catherio@MIT.EDU>
To: Alex Dehnert <adehnert@mit.edu>
Cc: Paul Baranay <pbaranay@mit.edu>, ua-fprc@mit.edu, ua-fprc-chairs@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <4A34C1B4.30302@mit.edu>
Great to see things are getting up and running.
Personally, I would most like to get an idea of the big view of where money is
coming in from and going to - both in terms of money the UA has control over,
but also in terms of money that goes towards "student life" (whatever that
actually means) via other routes. I don't think we can effectively improve on
the current system unless we have a clear picture of what the current
system is
like and where it's broken - and while I'm sure some people on the committee
have that big picture, I know I sure don't.
Thus, the following suggestions seem particularly important to me:
Quoting Alex Dehnert <adehnert@MIT.EDU>:
> * Amount allocated this year, and previous years if I can find it easily
> * Requests this year, and results from each request
> * The original legislation establishing the funds
> Paul Baranay wrote:
>> [...] relevant documentation (and/or a historical perspective?)
Also, since it's so important that we all understand the money flow now (who
allocates it, who spends it, on what, and how the allocators oversee the
expenditures), perhaps it'd be good to draw a chart/diagram of how it all
works? We can then clearly see what's bad and what needs fixing.
Unrelated to what I've said above, I'd particularly like to talk about
accountability. This includes both keeping UA bodies (eg, Class Councils) to
stay true to the overall guidelines and particular budgets/line items that
govern their use of money, and also ensuring that outside parties (eg, student
groups who come to Senate, who are not as familiar with how money flow works)
go to all the relevant money-allocating organizations in the right
order to get
funding, as well as submitting budgets/documentation/etc.
Hope to see you all at the first meeting, assuming it's not held while
I'm still
in Sweden. =)
- Catherine
