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U N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H F L O R I DA
SG proposes endowment that administration says breaks statutes By Maria Ranoni N E W S
E D I T O R
There is a divisive item proposed by the Senate in the Activity & Service (A&S) budget for the 201819 fiscal year that would allocate $1.375 million to create what’s known as an endowment. This endowment, if passed, would be taken and entrusted with off-campus financial institutions to invest with the intention of generating substantial returns in the future. However, there’s an issue with this: Administration says it breaks USF statutes. Danielle McDonald, the dean of students, said the act of investing money collected through A&S fees, a student fee, in an outside financial institution breaks USF6.028. This statute states that “All Activity and Service Fees shall be maintained in university accounts.” McDonald also said this would break the investment policy approved by the USF Board of Trustees. A section of this policy states that only the university Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (Nick Trivunovich) and the Treasurer (Fell Stubs) “are authorized to manage the financial assets of the university invested as short-term funds or long-term funds.” “We won’t approve a budget that violates policies or regulations,” McDonald said. “We’ve been pretty transparent. The legal counsel, the CFO, have all met with Student Government (SG) leadership that are in support of this endowment. I’ve met with them several times, gone to the endowment meetings, gone to ASRC (Activity & Service Recommendation Committee)
meetings, and have been pretty up front and clear on that. Even if they approve it all, it couldn’t happen.” Yousef Afifi, the chairman of the endowment ad hoc committee, has a different take on this. “We had been told by the university administration that it is illegal to put A&S fees — or student fees is what was told to me — in an outside financial institution,” Afifi said. “They said that was against the law and I said ‘OK, I doubt that.’” Afifi said he doubts this because USF administration holds its surplus money from every year, which generally come from student tuition according to him, in outside accounts. “We quickly came to the realization that (administration telling them it was against statutes) was something to get us to stop trying,” Afifi said. “Then we realized to ourselves — not only will we stop trying, we will divert that to other route which was to put A&S fees into the endowment.” Afifi said he maintains that he wants to work with USF administration rather than to be adversarial. “I never came into office wanting to go head to head with anyone,” Afifi said. “On the contrary, I wanted to work with them, I wanted to collaborate with them, but I was expecting them to give me a certain level of recognition in terms of recognizing that I am an elected member of representatives. They haven’t done that so far.” Jake Massa, a senator who opposes the endowment, said
Danielle McDonald, the dean of students, said the act of investing money collected through Activity & Service fees in an outside financial institution breaks USF statutes. ORACLE PHOTO/CHAVELI GUZMAN those in support of it are trying to formalize it before it exists. “What seems to be going around Student Government is that the administration is wholeheartedly against it,” Massa said. “They don’t think it’s something SG should be doing. So they (senators for the endowment) have definitely been trying to set it up so that there’s more legitimacy on their part. “They made a new committee for an endowment that doesn’t exist and that we had voted on two weeks ago.” The question remains though: Why create the endowment in the first place? The answer to that is financial trouble, according to Aladdin Hiba, chairman of ARSC and a supporter of the endowment.
Hiba said the expenses of A&S president, my goal is to always funded entities have gone up try and work toward initiatives close to 15-20 percent over the last that are in the best interest of my two years. These entities include student body,” Kheireddine said. departments like the Marshall “So, I haven’t made a clear cut Student Center (MSC), Campus opinion on what I view of this yet. Recreation and the Center for There’s not an easy way to say it, it Student Involvement (CSI), as well is a large number. There’s a large as student organizations. At the amount of money going toward same time, the A&S fee amount this.” charged to students has remained Aside from this endowment stagnant. breaking statutes, there are other “It’s impossible for us to sustain concerns related to the types of a budget that skyrockets so quickly investments that would be made without having an increased with the endowment money. source of revenue,” Hiba said. One phrase that was brought Moneer Kheireddine, student up during the planning of this body president, said he has yet aspect was “socially responsible to determine whether he fully investments.” supports the endowment. This may bring flashbacks of “In my role as student body n See ENDOWMENT on PAGE 5