There need to be balances on the people who write the checks.

This can clearly be seen in the mess that is the latest Student Assembly controversy — next year’s budget. After changing the rules to theoretically better represent students, our representatives spent almost 11 hours allocating money to student groups last Monday. Then, after conflicts of interest arose during the proceedings (see Friday’s coverage), they scrapped the entire thing and started over.

These issues arose because there are ample opportunities for self-interested governance built into the SA system. In the making of the budget, the Financial Council (FinCo) meets individually with student groups and comes up with an initial budget. This figure is then passed to the SA, which votes on individual amendments to improve the budget — at least in theory.

But the problem is that a student can be on a student group’s E-Board, part of the Assembly and a member of FinCo at the same time, completely destroying any semblance of checks and balances. Case in point: Phil Calderon, who sits on both FinCo and the Assembly, is the director of the Rainbow Pride Union.

RPU almost saw an increase of $1,000 in its budget this year, which would have brought it to a total of $11,000. Calderon isn’t breaking any rules in wearing many hats, and there haven’t been any grievances against him — in fact, you could say he’s just doing a really good job — but this kind of loophole is just asking to be abused. Students will inevitably vote in favor of groups they are a part of, or support their friends.

One of the people who wrote the rules for the failed budget procedure is now one of its most outspoken critics. Newly-elected Vice President for Finance Adam Shamah was quoted in Friday’s Pipe Dream as saying amendments to the budget were “motivated by self-interest.” We hate to say it, but duh.

The Assembly should have realized there were going to be problems with the procedure; if the Assembly didn’t, it wasn’t paying attention. Clearly, when 39 members of a 46-person Assembly are guaranteed the chance to make amendments to a budget that encompasses all student groups, there can and will be serious — even ethical — issues.

It’s hard to think of one thing or another to fix the Assembly; it can’t even manage itself, let alone the entire student body. But here’s a common sense quick fix: maybe people shouldn’t be allowed on both the Assembly and FinCo. This will allow for at least one level of separation between the two bodies with control over the budget. We also tend to think that FinCo should have a dominant say — ideally the final say — in the budget. It’s a significantly more specialized group and actually meets with student organizations, rather than arbitrarily voting on the fate of a group at 4 a.m.

Amit was right when he called out the Assembly; those 39 students have done nothing more than ignore the students they’re supposed to be representing.

The Assembly should recognize its own faults and try to make itself as idiot-proof as possible. Sadly, though, it will more than likely continue to be an administrative circle jerk.