The Action Rally on April 23, 2010, addressed many issues on the minds of California State University students and faculty – namely, the lack of funds available to the CSU system and the accountable, transparent allocation of remaining monies.
Unfortunately it seems the people at the top of the ladder weren’t listening.
CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and his staff are drawing fire for intentionally hiding the amount of money reserved to pay Sarah Palin to speak at a fundraiser at Cal State Stanislaus.
What we take issue with is the use of public funds, which could be put to much better use in this suffocating economy, to finance the event – without informing taxpayers. Cal State Stanislaus is a public school that relies chiefly on taxpayers’ money.
Public funds were not used to pay for the event, stated an e-mail statement from Matt Swanson, president of the Cal State Stanislaus Foundation Board of Directors.
However, the use of university employees and campus resources to host the event clearly qualifies as the use of public funds. Consequently, the records must be made available to the public under the California Public Records Act.
Evidence is emerging that demonstrates a clear violation of the public records act by CSU officials, according to a news release from California Sen. Leland Yee, author of a bill to increase transparency and accountability in CSU auxiliaries like the Cal State Stanislaus Foundation Board that hosted the event.
He also stated that there is now proof that Chancellor Reed was knowingly involved in the illegal activity.
“Chancellor Reed and President Shirvani were more concerned with covering up an embarrassing story than complying with state law,” Yee said.
As it stands, the public records act mandates that all public entities release documentation and records of their financial operations.
While CSUs, UCs and community colleges are currently subject to the act, the vast majority of the subsidiary organizations known as auxiliaries are not, such as Associated Students.
This leaves a lot of wiggle room for private and clandestine financial operations. Approximately 20 percent of the CSU budget, 1.34 billion dollars, is channeled through these auxiliary organizations.
We propose that the people responsible for this scandal should come clean, admit their mistakes, apologize and disclose all of the details that they tried to hide.
With so much of our educational system’s budget at stake, especially during such economic turmoil, all financial decisions need to be reviewed and assessed, which is not possible when we aren’t given access to financial records.
We don’t think the chancellor should necessarily lose his job, but we would like to see him follow state law.
As students and California taxpayers, we have contributed enormous amounts of money into the CSU system – we deserve to see where it’s going.
Editor-in-Chief Delaine Moore
Managing Editor Patty Conover
News Editor Anthony Siino
Opinion Editor James Jelenko
Sports Editor Lindsey Barrett
Entertainment Editor Matt Shilts
Features Editor Almendra Carpizo
Photo Editor Jeb Draper
Video Editor Kevin Hagedorn
Online Editor Esmeralda F. Ramirez
Chief Copy Editor Katie Mills
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