‘Cuse Can!’ spending has lacked transparency — and SU students deserve answers

There are a lot of questions unanswered about “Cuse Can! It Starts With Us,” an event sponsored by Student Association, University Union and the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

Primarily: Why were SA leaders allowed to spend almost $250,000 on “Cuse Can!” without any approval by SA’s Assembly?

“Cuse Can!” is branded as an event aiming to facilitate conversations about social change, among other things. Instead, it has — rightly — only raised concerns within SA about a lack of inclusive programming.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board believes that the lack of transparency over how this event was organized is extremely concerning.

The event starts Saturday in Goldstein Auditorium with a stand-up comedy performance by Tiffany Haddish at 1:45 p.m. Haddish’s performance will be followed by two discussion panels in Watson Theater: “What We Need to Be Talking About” and “Just Up The Block.” The panelists had not been publicly announced as of Sunday evening.

There will also be a concert performed by Pusha T and Flipp Dinero at 8:30 p.m. in Goldstein Auditorium.

Only three members of SA — President Ghufran Salih, Vice President Kyle Rosenblum and Comptroller Ambrose Gonzalez — approved the $242,000 in funding for the event through a process called rollover, according to Stacy Omosa, a member of SA’s Finance Board.

Rollover is a special SA budgetary fund. Omosa, who’s also a candidate for comptroller, last week said SA’s rollover account is made up of excess funds from the previous academic year that became available as registered student organizations canceled some events. (The RSOs had to return the excess money to SA.)

Here’s the issue: Based off this, almost a quarter of $1 million was spent by SA leaders without other elected members of the student organization knowing. There’s virtually no accountability. And little checks and balances of the executive.

This can be easily addressed and fixed moving forward, the editorial board believes.

Salih and Rosenblum should explain the details of the rollover fund, including how it exactly works, why they think Assembly members shouldn’t be involved in allocating funds out of it and how much they have spent in rollover this year. Is $242,000 all that was in rollover for 2018-19? It’s unclear, as of now.

The campus community, and RSOs that SA funds, deserve to know.

Several SA cabinet members have expressed frustration about “Cuse Can!,” saying they were ignored or not consulted in the planning of the event. Cabinet members have also said they disapprove of the event’s cost and content.

Goldstein Auditorium only holds a maximum of 1,500 people at any given point for sitting and standing events, according to the university. Hypothetically, if the Haddish or Pusha T performances sold out, and all of those respective attendees were undergraduates, in total that would represent only up to about 19.7% of the undergraduate student population at SU. (If 1,500 undergrads saw Haddish, left, and were replaced by 1,500 completely different ungrads for Pusha T’s concert.)

So, running the numbers: Three high-ranking SA members unilaterally approved the use of $242,000 in funds for a controversial event that includes keynote performances in a space that could hold only up to roughly 19.7% of their constituency.

The SU campus community deserves an explanation of why SA’s leaders believe this rollover process is an efficient and fair way of doing business.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board serves as the voice of the organization and aims to contribute the perspectives of students to discussions that concern Syracuse University and the greater Syracuse community. The editorial board’s stances are determined by a majority of its members. You can read more about the editorial board here. Are you interested in pitching a topic for the editorial board to discuss? Email opinion@dailyorange.com.