The Fiscal Policy Subcommittee recently released the 2009 Union Annual Report—a 37-page document that breaks down the budgeting process and determination of the new activity fee. This year, the report was given a face-lift in an effort to ensure that we, the students, know exactly where the almost $9 million are spent.
The new version of the report was released to the RPI community by e-mail last week, and—although the document in previous years was only a set of spreadsheets—great strides have been made within student government to make sure that everyone interested can understand what very few people within the student body previously had access to.
The UAR gives details about where various percentages of the student activity fee go, from the Archer Center for Student Leadership to the men’s hockey team, as well as how much of the fee is offset by income from Rensselaer Union operations like the bookstore and Father’s Marketplace.
Given the current state of the economy, the Editorial Board of The Poly commends the student leaders involved in the project and hopes that the movement towards transparency within student government continues to thrive.
We hope that this endeavor will continue to permeate the Institute as a whole in the next few weeks, as many financial announcements are set to be made. At a time when many financial decisions are being made among Institute leadership, it is our wish that efforts be made to better inform students of where their money goes. While we understand that budgeting is done behind closed doors for the most part, we would like anything that can be disseminated to the RPI community to be released and that the lines of communication remain open.
We urge students who have not read the UAR yet to do so. Transparency can only go so far if students do not take advantage of the released information. While we can take pride in our Union for creating and releasing such a document, we must finish the task by reading it and responding responsibly.
