Grand Valley's 'Battle' money mismanaged, stolen from office

February 6, 2006 —

In the Oct. 17 Vanguard Vision, we wrote of the Grand Valley State Student Senate's inability to properly organize the "Battle of the Valleys" award presentation during the football game on Oct. 15. While we alluded to several possible reasons for this - the students knew they had lost before the game, for example - we did know for sure that the Senate had simply screwed up. By the look of things, it appears it has screwed up once more.

The Senate realized late last semester, nearly two months after the "Battle," that some of the $7,327 raised by the Lakers was stolen out of the Student Senate office. To make matters worse, while the money was supposed to immediately be put into a safe and at some point presumably actually given to a charity, it was instead locked in a drawer of a desk in the Senate office.

The theft was made public last Monday in a story in the Grand Rapids Press. According to Dean of Students Bart Merkle, "It appears the money was locked in a desk. Typically when there is money raised, it is put in a safe if it's not able to be deposited." After some of the money - GVSU said not all of it was stolen, but would not release how much had been exactly - was discovered missing, the rest was immediately put in a safe in the GVSU Office of Student Life, according to the GVSU student newspaper, the Lanthorn. As of last week, the money and checks in the safe had still not been deposited.

What the Senate was thinking is beyond us. Our interpretation of the "Battle of the Valleys" was that it is an event put on for charity. Clearly, the point of raising money for a charity is to actually give the money to the charity, not lock it up in a desk for two months.

The SVSU Student Association certainly did not have this problem. After having a problem with how it was going to spend the money it raised - only three displaced Hurricane Katrina families submitted wishlists - SA was able to give countless families around the area Christmas presents in mid-December. The money was well spent and in a timely manner.

How a student organization as highly regarded as a student government can, quite simply, screw up so badly is certainly an interesting question. Maybe Grand Valley students should take some time for once to worry where their charity money is going instead of how well their sports teams are performing.