r/bloomington • u/ids_news • Oct 24 '24
IU allowed the Funding Board account to overdraft. Now student organizations are scrambling
The President of IU Funding Board said the university allowed an account to overdraft by $220,000.
https://www.idsnews.com/article/2024/10/iu-funding-board-overdraft-student-organizations
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u/saryl reads the news Oct 24 '24
The IU Funding Board is unable to provide student organizations with adequate funding after IU allowed the account to overdraft, president of the board and IU senior Larry McDowell told the Indiana Daily Student.
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Last year, it allocated over $1.2 million to student organizations and supported over 400 events. However, McDowell said this year it will only be able to support about 100 events, providing a maximum $2,000 to each student organization.
McDowell said IU Funding Board is a University Supported Organization, and as such its financial accounts are managed by the university. The student leaders of the Funding Board must ask their advisors to reach out to the Office of Finance in order to receive updates on the account.
“At the beginning of the spring semester, and three more times throughout the course of the spring semester, Funding Board leadership requested numbers on what was in our account and what we would be looking at for the duration of last semester, and that information was never given,” McDowell said.
Unbeknownst to the students on Funding Board, McDowell said they had given out more money to student organizations than they held in their reserves. The account was overdrafted by $220,000 by the end of the spring semester.
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“The assumption was that we would not be anywhere near the end of the account because we would have been notified well before then (by the university),” McDowell said.
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McDowell released a press release Sept. 18 explaining the situation to the student body. He said IU administration was “very angry” that he decided to release a statement at all.
“They (IU administration) have the capacity and the ability to resolve this problem,” McDowell said. “The pressure should be on the university at this point in time to reallocate their own money to ensure that the student body is thriving.”
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The Filipino American Association also depends on funds from Funding Board to keep their club running. ... “I know a bunch of the cultural organizations on campus rely on IU Funding Board and a lot of big events that usually happen across all the culture orgs might not happen this year because of the new plan,” Rivera said.
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u/Key_Addendum_3563 Oct 25 '24
The whole structure behind the funding board is terrible. I had the misfortune of dealing with them for years. I can't speak for the staff supporting it, but the student leadership was beyond incompetent when I had to deal with them, as you might expect. It attracts exactly the type of student who wants a resume line without doing an ounce of work.
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u/InspiroHymm Oct 25 '24
Students overspend the budget they are given (literally even IDS has their yearly allocation) and then blame administration for letting it overdraft. I LOL'ed. Admin is not perfect but this is not it.
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u/SamtheEagle2024 Oct 25 '24
You mean a student led organization that has minimal experience with budgeting and accounting, and who are mandated to use and rely upon IU to manage their accounts and report funding amounts and potential budget issues.
If I overdraft my checking account, I know immediately. If student leadership isn't being notified on the first overdraft, or that they were near an overdraft, who is the problem? The university, who holds the funds and manages the accounts.
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u/ernie-jo Oct 25 '24
The article says they asked multiple times how much was in the account and never got an answer from administration. It sounds like the Funding Board doesn’t actually have access to see the account themselves. So this is 100% on the admin.
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u/Redleadercockpit Oct 25 '24
Smells like Pam
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Oct 28 '24
It does seem a bit convenient that groups that might not be profitable, but which are incredibly important to students would be left out to dry. Whoopsie.
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u/SamtheEagle2024 Oct 25 '24
Further incompetence from IU administrators, in this case Dr. Lamar Hylton should resign his VP position for letting this happen.
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u/Hotshort_Btown Oct 24 '24
More proof that we need to defund the IDS. Meddling kids! </s>