Opinion: Student Body Calls for an Audit of Student Body Government

Editorial note: The Quest editorial board has agreed to publish this article anonymously because of concerns about potential retaliation against its author if their identity was publicly known. 

In light of the most recent reporting concerning the financial practices of the Student Government, specifically the final line of the article “Senate Continues to Struggle with Funding Concerns” from the February 21 Quest that questions “whether Senate’s financial decisions are truly transparent or in the interests of Reed’s student body,” it feels necessary to offer a next logical step in the process of addressing what seems to be quite serious financial mismanagement – an independent audit of our Student Body Government and their finances.

I believe that this is necessary due to two key facts. First, the Student Body Government has proven they cannot be trusted to effectively communicate with the student body they are supposed to represent, and have failed to be proactively transparent. Second, the Student Body Government has grossly mismanaged student funds while showing neither any significant efforts or intentions at the executive level to correct these shortcomings.

To start, the first key fact can be proven true without much of a search. In the aforementioned article from last week, President Andee Gude ‘26 states that Senate never “had plans to not be transparent about the fact that it happened.” This statement is purposefully incredibly vague: rather than providing any glimpse into Senate’s behavior, Gude reinforces the prevalent suspicion that Senate is purposefully avoiding clear communication with their constituents. If they had any desire to make their dealings transparent, the student body would ideally receive detailed explanations of financial decisions and announcements concerning them. Instead, their vague and unhelpful responses suggest a concerning lack of accountability, and a pattern of evasion and redirection that raises questions about the integrity of its leadership and operations. This pattern is further reinforced by an additional detail – until the reporting and involvement of the Quest, Senate felt no need to announce they had doubled their own discretionary budget all while simultaneously allocating a mere 50% of the total sum of money requested by each club, failing to fairly compensate student workers for their labor, and holding onto their own stipends without any consideration of changes. This is compounded further still by Senate’s refusal to take accountability for a former member of Senate leaving on the grounds of racial bias, as well as the fact that multiple Senators have informed me that they have considered resignation due to the hostile environment created by current Senate leadership. In addition, multiple former senators have already resigned for the same reason, which also suggests that the executives of the Student Body Government are acting out of alignment with the interests of their fellow students and even their fellow senators. This all serves to prove that the Student Body Government has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to effectively communicate with the student body they claim to represent and has failed to be proactively transparent. 

Second, and perhaps more importantly, it must be proven that the Student Body Government has committed some transgression that necessitates such a severe reaction. As such, the recent behavior of the Student Body President only adds impetus to this understanding, affirming that Senate is indeed committing serious ethical transgressions. The mere fact that each senator, both past and present, used as a source in the February 21 wage review article chose to remain anonymous is incredibly telling – senators being afraid to discuss issues that surround their line of work is clear evidence of contrasting viewpoints between their leadership and the rest of Senate, as well as a resulting disposition within their leadership towards silencing dissenting voices. It is apparent that although senators are aware of problems that could be addressed, they avoid doing so for fear of retaliation, which suggests another question regarding the balance of power within Senate, and the accountability of the executives. Current Head Treasurer Maya Gutierrez ‘27 has stated that she is “trying to fund in a way that reduces the difficulty of funding in the future,” acknowledging that the current system is “not working.” However, these reforms seem to be met with adversity from the other executives of the Student Body Government. To this point, the decision to spend $7,500 on private DEI training was made individually by Lucy Knight-King ‘26 during winter break, acting both in the role of Vice President and Head Treasurer simultaneously and spending recklessly. Knight-King’s decision was passed off by Gude, but according to one former senator, it was done “without informing the incoming Head Treasurer,” who was forced to increase Senate’s discretionary budget cap as a result. This action is nonetheless mystifying, considering both the frightening monetary figure Knight-King chose to spend on Senate’s DEI training and the fact that Reed offers its own free DEI training and programs via the Office for Institutional Diversity and Center for Teaching and Learning, suggesting this decision to be symptomatic of a greater lack of consideration by Senate executives for the impacts of their spending. This conclusion is only further reinforced by the “confidence that [spending] didn’t matter” mentioned by a former senator in the February 21 article. Even then, Senate’s initial budget was exceptionally high. Only three clubs received more funding in this semester’s Funding Circus than Senate kept for their discretionary budget: the Quest, the Griffin yearbook, and Beer Nation. Regardless of the pool of money from which Senate’s budget is constituted, the fact that they burn through such a large budget with such reckless abandon is exceptionally concerning, and leads students to question whether Senate is really putting that money to its best use.

In light of this information, from unrestricted overspending to cut student jobs to an unapologetic lack of transparency, there must be some severe reaction. For that, the original proposition of an independent audit of the Student Body Government’s finances by Reed’s Business Office becomes the most immediately obvious next step. This independent audit would also constitute Treasury releasing its financial records for the last four semesters to Reed’s students for analysis. While this release of information is undoubtedly a new and potentially intimidating approach, it has become apparently necessary in light of Senate’s conduct. For that, we must thank the members of our Student Body Government whose interests have strayed from those of the student body, as well as the current and former senators who have shown a willingness to speak up and bring these issues to light.

The sentiments displayed in this op-ed were shared and agreed upon by six anonymous senators and treasurers, past and present.