Howard: Allocations becoming more transparent, but SGB can make it even more clear

Student Government Board President Charlie Shull started the semester off right when he… Student Government Board President Charlie Shull started the semester off right when he disclosed the location of a traditionally secret SGB retreat and promised to increase transparency in SGB through his “Behind the Glass Door” program.

Before last night’s meeting, Shull’s proposal last week tomove SGB meetings from the eighth floor of the Union down to Nordy’s Place was the most public example of this “Behind the Glass Door” initiative, but it won’t be occurring for some time.

In an interview on Monday, Shull said the plan to move to Nordy’s Place is being held up by the fact that SGB doesn’t have a password and username for the online room reservation system that student groups use to reserve space for events. Shull said that he expects to receive a password and username today so he can begin working on reserving Nordy’s Place.

But moving Tuesday night meetings to Nordy’s Place is a minor proposal compared to the significant change in the allocations process unveiled at last night’s Board meeting. Specifically, Board members last night publicly discussed allocations requests and revealed their reasons for voting to either grant or reject each request.

As part of the new procedure, the allocations committee chairman read both his committee’s recommendation and the reasoning behind it. The inclusion of the committee’s reasoning is a significant step forward, and while it should provide students with more information about how decisions are made about their money, it also succeeded in sparking greater public discussion by Board members about their votes.

Such public discussion represents a remarkable shift in the allocations process, a process that was previously carried out behind closed doors. Moreover, this shift in SGB procedure is a recognition that students deserve to know how decisions are being made about the student money that SGB controls.

Although Shull and his fellow Board members should be congratulated for this new move toward a more transparent student government, it is necessary to recognize that there is much more to be done in increasing transparency within SGB. For instance, meetings of the allocations committee are still being held behind closed doors without direct student participation.

Partially addressing the issue of closed allocations meetings, Shull said that he is working on posting minutes from the allocations committee meetings online, but this still doesn’t address the need for greater student participation in the decision-making process.

Don’t get me wrong, I commend Shull for initiating these two important changes in the allocations process, and I do believe that they will make the process more transparent. But students have both a right to see how these decisions are being made and a right to influence these decisions themselves.

After all, SGB controls our money, and students who are neither Board members nor leaders of large student organizations deserve the opportunity to affect funding decisions. For this reason, it is important for SGB to further amend its rules to allow public comment on allocations requests before final votes are cast.

Such additional changes in SGB procedure could make the Board even more transparent, but students also have to play a role in making SGB a more accountable and open organization. More students need to show up to weekly SGB meetings — held every Tuesday at 8:45 p.m. on the eighth floor of the Union — and take an interest in SGB procedure if our student government is going to be more open.

But even with the recognition that more can be done to increase transparency in SGB, it’s important to view last night’s changes in the allocations process as a positive step forward for SGB. Shull said it was an important step for the Board, especially since transparency has been a “constant topic” of discussion surrounding SGB.

It’s good to see a Board president finally take action to correct this perennial problem, and I look forward to seeing SGB take further steps — including the publishing of allocations committee minutes on the SGB website.

Continue the conversation at Giles’ blog, gilesbhoward.com/blog/, or e-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu.