Editorial: Stricter oversight of funding

Monday, Aug. 20, 2001 | 9:06 a.m.

Student government funding on the campuses of UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada have been a mess -- albeit for much different reasons. In the case of UNLV, a 15-year-old mistake by university administrators shortchanged the funding for the university's student government. So last week administrators and student government leaders agreed that student government would receive an extra $500,000 over the next two years in an effort to partially offset what it had lost.

At the Community College of Southern Nevada, an audit by college administrators found that there were virtually no constraints placed on student government leaders, who lavished free restaurant meals on themselves and spent $20,000 on an out-of-state junket in 1999 to see a play in Santa Barbara, Calif. The student government also bought 15 Dell personal computers for $18,000 that still haven't been accounted for.

These truly are incredible sums of money -- at both institutions. The Board of Regents, which oversees the state's public universities and community colleges, should thoroughly investigate why one institution was shorted at least $500,000, and yet another had so much money it didn't know what to do with it all, spending it like a drunken sailor. The Board of Regents also should answer some basic questions, such as: How much funding is appropriate? Where should the money be allocated? And who is going to monitor the spending? There need to be tough guidelines and strict enforcement mechanisms on how student government funds are spent.