IUSA withdraws petition against Funding Board

IU Student Association historian John Gillard withdrew a petition Wednesday for injunctive relief submitted to the Student Body Supreme Court alleging that Funding Board’s constitution violated IUSA bylaws.

The petition initially alleged that a recent restructuring of Funding Board would leave the organization with too little elected oversight. The new constitution allows for a composition of less elected members and a director who can be appointed internally, said IUSA vice president for administration and senior Jack McCarthy.

McCarthy said this move away from stronger elected representation caused some members of the executive branch to feel that Funding Board was taking on too much independence from IUSA as a whole.

“I really felt this is a bigger issue of University policy being broken,” Gillard said.
Funding Board Director and senior Anna Williams said the petition was met with surprise by members of the Funding Board.

“Given our working relationship with IUSA and the fact that we do operate within the same office, we were a little surprised to receive that e-mail on Monday morning,” Williams said.

Williams said recent structural changes have allowed Funding Board to deal with a large number of funding requests received this year.   

Gillard said because documents regarding the changes made to Funding Board during 2005 and 2006 could not be found, and because he was unable to prove the board of trustees approved IUSA to distribute Student Organization fund money, his initial case was broken.
This led him to withdraw the petition. Without those documents, he could not prove that Funding Board violated the most recent set of established bylaws.

Funding Board functions under the umbrella of IUSA but independently determines the
allocation of Student Organization fund money to student groups. This year, Funding Board operated with a budget of more than $350,000, Williams said. That money is collected from student fees.

McCarthy said the allocation of student funds used to be determined by Congress. Because this process was both time consuming and intimidating for students, Funding Board was streamlined and given more individual authority.

Eleven members serve on the  Funding Board. In the past, five were appointed by the IUSA president, four were elected in the IUSA elections, and two more were appointed by the Funding Board director, McCarthy said.

The new constitution would give the Funding Board the power to internally remove elected members, Gillard said. It also removes the appeals process, which previously allowed student groups to appeal Funding Board decisions on the allocation of money.

McCarthy said it’s important for students to be represented on the Funding Board either by IUSA congressmen or by members appointed by the elected president.

“We feel like they should be accountable to some constituency,” McCarthy said.“We’re just hoping for student checks and balances, rather than needing administrators to be checks and balances.”

After the petition was withdrawn, a meeting was scheduled with members of IUSA, Funding Board, Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith and Assistant Dean of Students Steve Veldkamp, McCarthy said. McCarthy, Gillard and Williams all said they viewed this meeting as the best way to solve the dispute over Funding Board’s structure.

McCarthy said the meeting would ultimately be more effective than a Supreme Court hearing.

“At the end of the day, the Supreme Court can decide something, but if the administrators didn’t back it up, it isn’t guaranteed.”