The University Student Senate (USS) can no longer fund Registered Student Organizations (RSOs), as an internal audit revealed that its funds have been “exhausted.” This follows a recent discovery that university administrators incorrectly told senators they would receive an extra $200,000 in rollover funds.

Because the USS exhausted its funds, RSOs who were previously promised allocated funds are left to find financial support on their own. Some club leaders say they have been paying out of pocket in order to cover these promised costs.

In response, RSOs wrote a letter to the USS, requesting answers as to why they were not receiving the money and how it was spent. This letter was signed by several club members, including members of Project Sankofa, the Game Club, and Exile. 

Project Sankofa, an organization meant to give a platform to Black artists, is run by Camille Wyatt and Liam Hamilton, both third-year students. The two had planned to host their second nature retreat, with 21 artists expected to attend. They were told they would receive $5,000 to fund this retreat, but received an email notification that the funds were no longer available.

“People are really excited and depending on this trip, and I don’t want them to feel insecure that they’re not going to be able to come or that we’re not here to support them, even though they know how hard we’re fighting for this,” Wyatt said. 

With the date of the retreat approaching, the group resorted to setting up a GoFundMe, where they successfully raised the remaining amount of money they needed for the retreat. 

“The only reason we were able to hold on to this trip is because Camille has been so vigorously communicating with our retreat center for the past three months … We already have contracts and documents signed. So the school trying to pull out of a very large contract last minute — it was like, we already are way further along the line than you all even realize,” Hamilton said. 

The New School Game Club, which allows students to de-stress by playing a variety of games ranging from vintage board games to console games, also did not receive its intended allocated funds. 

According to Jean-Luc Montaudy, a first-year graduate student and the social media manager, the Game Club would usually use USS money to purchase new games and update anything that is broken or not working, and provide pizza for every meeting.

“There’s this whole console that people are not able to use any of the games or play at all, because we just have no batteries,” Jacey Chen, a third-year student who is co-president of the Game Club, said. 

At a budget meeting that members of the club had with USS earlier in the semester, they were told that USS would no longer be funding any type of food at all. They were not given any specific reason why. 

Members of the Game Club explained that the pizza they offer at all their meetings is vital, and for many people it is a way for them to be able to eat dinner. Any leftovers were given out to people around the building, like security guards and people getting out of class, making sure that none of it ever went to waste. 

The Game Club now relies on funding from the Student Leadership Involvement (SLI) office, and they have also gotten Joe’s Pizza to cater the weekly meetings, which is paid for by SLI. 

Montaudy signed this letter, but said he was later approached by a member of the USS, who asked that he remove his name. 

“One of the ranking members of the Student Senate contacted me and said that they were shocked to see my name on this document,” Montaudy said. ‘“This person accused me of condoning behavior that would be equivalent to pitchforks and to mob behavior escalating to the same degree of some protests from last year, which I felt is incomparable … I just think they’re two different conversations there,” 

Montaudy was unaware of any verbal or physical attacks on the USS, and said that was never his, or any of his peers’, intention when signing the letter.

Jake Custodio, ​​associate director of communications for the University Student Senate, is also the president of Exile, a club that allows students to showcase their work in the magazine that they publish every year. 

“We know how eager the people that are represented in this are to flip through it and see their work on a page, because that’s such a novel and validating thing for an artist — to see your work in print,” Custodio said. 

Exile had requested $2,500 from the USS. In past years, they used this money to print their magazine. “Because we didn’t have funding, we had to assemble and print these ourselves through our own pocket.” Since they were paying out of pocket, they weren’t able to access as much of a quality printer as they usually do. 

“To break the news to everybody … it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,” Custodio said. 

All three clubs’ members had the same thing to say about what they want to see from the USS: more accountability, more transparency, and more honesty. 

“They still haven’t been totally honest about what everything is being spent on,” Farah Azim, co-president and treasurer of the Game Club, said. They want to know exactly how their funds were spent, and want there to be more supervision of fund spending to avoid this from happening again. 

“If it [the expenditures] had gone through more checks and balances and more stages of approval, there is a lot of money that would not have been spent,” Custodio said.