Following recent reports of Northern Undergraduate Student Society’s (NUGSS) financial mismanagement – including $100,000 owed to BC Transit for the Upass – a few students wanted a third party to oversee the school council.
The “NUGSS Needs an Oversight Board” group presented at Wednesday’s Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), proposing the watchdog group that would sit above the executive board and approve monthly wages and supervises conduct.
Movement co-ordinator Chris King was a part of a committee to restructure UNBC’s governing system earlier this year. Once that committee’s proposal was voted down, King helped create this latest group.
“It wasn’t so much the fault of any one person that the society has gotten itself into these problems. It was more a systemic thing about how it was governed.”
The movement needed at least 75% support from the 100 or so people in attendance but fell about 8% short. Despite the final vote and current financial situation, King says he’s happy that more students are keeping an eye on their governing body.
“Today, we walked out of that meeting saying ‘hey, we got everybody involved.’ There was lots of people there and they were speaking passionately for and against this and I think, if nothing else, that’s positive … We pay them out of our student fees and it’s important to pay attention and in the past there hasn’t been a lot of attention paid and that’s been the reason that they got themselves into those problems.”
Also at the EGM, the board did decide to shrink its number of members from eleven to eight. This will help cut costs moving forward.