Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                            Matt Dulin    Barrett Goldsmith    Zach Lee 
                Jim Parsons            Christian Schmidt           Blake Whitaker

Dollars and sense

When you break down the numbers, each UH student will contribute less than a dollar to pay for the Student Government Association's executive salaries.

With an enrollment of about 34,000, each student can expect to dole out 88 cents to pay the monthly salaries of their SGA president, vice president, student regent, director of finance, director of public relations and speaker of the Senate. 

Maybe we can't expect too much out of three quarters, a dime and three pennies, but the least we can expect is for every salaried executive to work the minimum number of hours in service to the student body.

As it stands, members of the Senate are grumbling over no-show executives who don't work 20 hours a week in the SGA offices. But there is no way to prove that, as the current system of logging hours is up to the individual officers, who are required to sign in and out on time sheets and submit monthly reports. Ideally, we could trust them to be honest in keeping their logs. Of course, as long as we're talking about ideals, there would be no problem because every SGA executive would put in well more than 20 hours toward the University.

But something's amiss.

Only the Senate can enforce the 20-hour requirement, which is stipulated by the SGA Constitution. It needs to hold its leaders -- our leaders -- accountable. While officials asked the Student Fees Advisory Committee to look into a new system, it is the Senate's duty to solve the problem.

With elections nigh, the issue should be on the minds of every SGA candidate and every student voter. This is but one more issue for a student government that also narrowly avoided a deadlock over online voting. It has trouble establishing a Web presence and continues to face an ongoing struggle to prove its relevancy.

But let this also serve as a reminder to every student organization that pays its leaders -- hold them accountable and don't let the money go to waste.
 

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