The Student Government Association (SGA) is returning nearly $7,000 to groups on campus that are financed through fundraising after an audit revealed an inaccuracy in SGA’s contingency budget.
SGA held a budget meeting in April and discussed a fiscal plan to budget money for distribution among student groups on campus as the 2014-2015 academic year began.
The meeting served as an opportunity for the SGA executive board members to communicate with Augustana’s business office. However, confusion arose in October when an audit revealed an inaccuracy in the budget.
“The fiscal year ends later than the school year at Augustana, and when the audits happened in October of this year, [the auditors] found that some of the fundraising groups made enough money to keep the money they raised,” said Richard Benson, president of SGA. “The office thought it was subtracted and it was not.”
Benson explained that nearly $7,000 was surplus and while it was an unfortunate discovery, he was glad they caught the mistake.
“We thought we had that extra money, but really it was not ours to use,” said Benson. “So we were in a sense stealing that money, and so we were happy to return it.”
“The error was simply a mistake in removing existing fundraising money in student’s accounts,” said Jamie Conroy, SGA treasurer.
She said the only restriction these errors will cause is being able to reward less of the budget to certain groups.
Benson also said that while the large amount of money takes away from the contingency budget, the group will cautiously continue distributing money to student groups without feeling much of an effect.
“About a fifth of our budget is being subtracted, so of course we will need to move forward with a new attentive approach,” said first-year class senator Blake Randolph, who said he feels confident this mistake will not reoccur in the future.
Benson said Conroy is in communication with the business office to ensure that more transparent forms prevent future mix-ups.
“Currently, the business office is looking into new ways and ideas to prevent this situation from occurring (again)” Conroy said.
SGA is still planning to award money to several on campus groups and is forecasting to continue to a have prosperous year.