Inspector general position a possibility for MSA

Members debated the necessity of adding the new position.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published Oct. 30, 2009

The Missouri Students Association debated a bill at the full Senate session regarding the creation of an Office of Inspector General position within the legislative branch of MSA.

The bill, co-authored by former Operations Committee Chairman Josh Travis and new Chairman Evan Wood, is designed to transfer the budget auditing responsibilities to an Inspector General outside the membership of MSA.

"The auditing power being invested in a legislative committee is a huge conflict of interest," Wood said. "It's like if a company somewhere was coming up with their own budget and then was responsible for auditing their own financial interest."

Travis said in addition to being an issue of conflict of interest, the auditing process is a task the Operations Committee does not have the experience or time to do effectively.

"The Operations Committee should not be auditing our budget because it's not only a conflict of interest, but it's just an irresponsibly placed power," Travis said. "We don't have the time or experience because we have other issues to tackle."

As stated in the bill, the OIG would conduct independent and objective audits, investigations and inspections; prevent and detect waste, fraud and abuse; promote economy, effectiveness and efficiency; review pending legislation and regulation; and keep the president and the Senate fully informed.

Travis said though MSA manages services and the federal government manages people, it would be close-minded not to adopt certain practices within MSA that have successful precedent on the federal level.

"We have one of two options," Travis said. "We can hire an outside firm to come in like most companies do, or we can adopt a practice already established by our federal government."

As the bill is written, the OIG would be a paid position. This is something Budget Committee Chairman Matt Sheppard said is not an appropriate way to use students' money.

"Our committee's philosophy is that we're going to spend every single dollar we get from students in the most responsible way possible," Sheppard said. "This position doesn't meet the students' needs. If this was an unpaid position, there might be less contention with it, but making it a paid position is not an appropriate allocation of student fees."

Sheppard also said he has a problem with the bill giving auditing powers to an individual person when there is a committee of seven members already in place within MSA.

"For this position, the person is not even required to sit in and watch how our budgets are made and see how we handle our funds," Sheppard said. "We have a seven member committee that takes care of these things. We don't need a person to come and say this is not OK."

MSA Senate Speaker Amanda Shelton said the duties of the Budget Committee are outlined in the MSA bylaws and are different from those of a potential Inspector General. She said this new position would overlap with the responsibilities already charged to the Budget Committee.

"The parts of MSA are all very interconnected, and that really helps with communication and working out problems," Shelton said. "So I would anticipate the Inspector General working with the budget and operations committees and the vice president, among many individuals and entities, to promote better information sharing about financial issues."