Tomorrow, an audit report at the Board of Trustees meeting will reveal that Ohio State has five “significant deficiencies” among 11 other less-significant deficiencies within Ohio State’s internal controls for financial reporting.
The report was so tedious that the firm that performed the audit, Deloitte & Touche, charged the university $1.4 million. That price included $63,000 in unanticipated charges.
It seems that the university might not have a great hold on what is going on financially within the institution, which is easy enough to understand. In a university this large, it’s impossible to watch every department or every employee. I have heard numerous times that it’s easy to take advantage of the system as a student employee, whether by inflating hours, overstaffing or underproducing. With around 35,000 employees, there is plenty of room for little accountability.
So as a student at OSU, I would like to know exactly what my money is being spent on, and if there is a chance that it is going to one of these “deficiencies.”
Yesterday, The Lantern reported that starting Spring Quarter students will be charged a quarterly fee for the new Ohio Union. The “Student Union Facility Fee” will cost up to $62 per student per quarter and is supposed to be for the renewal and maintenance of the building.
In Spring Quarter, students will most likely be charged only $27, because of the “generosity” of Coca-Cola Co. But what is all that money for?
The Columbus campus has 55,014 students. Multiply that by the $27 fee and the university will be getting roughly $1,485,378, and that figure doesn’t include what Coca-Cola will be donating.
A brand-new building is going to need more than $1.5 million in renewals in its first quarter of operation? Even if the Union is planning on hoarding the money for future needs, students should be getting a detailed account of that money.
The decision about the fee was made in 2004 and student governments were present at the meeting so “students would know about the fee ahead of time.” News flash: six years later, those students are no longer here.
When I received my e-mail from the University Registrar informing me of the fee, I had already registered for my spring classes. There was no advanced notice here. Additionally, student government hasn’t even been involved in the fee discussions since 2004, said Ben Anthony, current Undergraduate Student Government president. If the fee is affecting current students, current student leaders should be a part of the decisions.
While fees are unavoidable, the university has failed my expectations for communication and accountability for these fees, just like it fell short in Deloitte & Touche’s assessment.
