Secrets in the SGA

Want to know what the overall budget for clubs to divide up at Lyndon State College is each year? Good luck.

How about the actual vote numbers during secret ballots? Sorry, that's private information too, unless the Student Government Association executive board decides to give them up.

Part of Lyndon State College's SGA's description of itself is 'listening. empowering. changing'. However, there are some things the SGA keeps from the students it represents.

One part of the SGA at Lyndon that stays secretive is the 'magic number', which is the amount of funds available for club use every year. The SGA goes through a budgeting process every year that involves cutting every club's proposed budget until the 'magic number' is reached. Last year, the number was roughly $117,000.

"It's really discouraged to make cuts for the sake of making cuts," Executive Vice President of the SGA Rachel Keller said. "The point of a budget is to find where unnecessary money is going or where money is going unnecessarily, so if everyone knew exactly what number we're reaching, then the likelihood of cutting just to make cuts would greatly increase."

"It creates a fair and balanced atmosphere for all clubs. If we were to say it's a million dollars – which it may be – that's what clubs would cut to, and they would do it quickly," President John Kleinhans said. "It's for the best interest of the clubs and for everybody involved. And it always works."

The SGA at Lyndon is also notorious for keeping secret ballot results from the students it represents. The constitution states that 'The vote count is not recorded or reported' when the decision is announced to representatives. However, it does not say that the results need to be kept secret after meetings.

"It's up to our discretion," Shannon Healy, the SGA adviser said on whether voting numbers are released.

"The only time that voting numbers [aren't] exactly actually released is when it's secret ballot. They always know that if something passes, it's by a certain majority, like in the case of impeachment, it had to be 2/3, so people knew at least 2/3 were in favor of something," Keller said.

Some students at LSC say releasing voting numbers, or even eliminating the secret ballot, would increase open communication between the SGA and the student body.

"I believe that the key is for students to have an awareness of what their elected officials are doing," Justin Chenette, the vice president of communications for SGA said.

He also added that by eliminating secret ballots, representatives would be held more accountable by the students who elected them.

"Just because we've always done it this way doesn't make it right," Chenette said.

One situation at Lyndon that resulted in voting numbers being released was the special election for a new administrative vice president following the impeachment of Chris Shadrock.

"That was a really unique situation because there were demands for numbers and people just didn't believe this person won and they wanted to know," Keller said. "There were a lot of circumstances for that. There's nothing written anywhere that says we can't."

"Over the course of the last three years, it's gone from very secret to more open, and it's a way for the future, I think." Kleinhans said, adding that if students wanted to see changes in the amount of information they're given, "There would have to be a constitutional amendment, which would not take into effect this year."

Johnson State College has a different approach to determining the budget each year, allowing students to know exactly the overall budget for clubs.

"There's no secrecy with our budget and our students," SGA President Ben Chaucer said. "We'll publish our budget in the paper."

"We'll release the budget to anyone," said Johnson SGA Senator Jonathan Willson. "Our number doesn't really change from year to year."

Like LSC, the student activity fee makes up a large portion of the budget given to the SGA at Johnson. Instead of being doled out to individual clubs, it is kept in a pool and given out as each club needs it.

Willson said the idea behind this system is to encourage clubs to fundraise, instead of being granted a budget at the beginning. The Johnson SGA also has a program in place that will match fundraising efforts up to $300 each semester per club.

The Johnson SGA, made up of an executive board and nine student senators, is responsible for voting when a club makes a monetary request.

Willson said when a club asks for money, the senators will generally accept "if we deem it worth giving to them." Each senator represents at least two clubs. Willson represents both the Christian Fellowship and the Otaku Anonymous club.

As for keeping secret ballots confidential, Chaucer said it's not an issue at Johnson.

"We don't run into a lot of issues where people have to hide how they feel," he said. The ballot results are public knowledge at Johnson.

Lyndon is a public college, which means that students have more access to information and ability to make decisions regarding their experiences at school. Currently, the 'magic number' will stay secret, unless students join together to propose an amendment.

Because there are no set rules in the SGA constitution, secret ballot numbers are also kept hidden unless the executive board decides to release them. This could also change with an amendment.

During the most recent SGA meeting at Lyndon in which next year's budget was approved, Kleinhans presented both secret ballot numbers and the official ‘magic number'. After the meeting, he explained the decision to release the numbers allows for more transparency.

"It's a precedent for the future," he said.

Whether this becomes a regular SGA practice remains to be seen, however, because it is not formally written into the constitution.