Assistant Editor

The question has been bugging me.  Is the Student Government Association subject to Missouri’s Sunshine Law?  In the article I wrote for the April 8th issue, I made sure to say that SGA wasn’t in compliance with the law, and not say violating the law, because I wasn’t sure whether the law applied.

The law describes several types of “Public Governmental Bodies” which basically breaks down as any organ of the state or any body given authority by the state to spend tax money.  The law also specifically mentions the governing bodies of state universities, such as our Board of Governors, as subject to the law.

SGA is not part of the Missouri state government.  It’s a creation of the school to represent the students.  However, it seemed to me that SGA does spend public money in the form of the state’s grant to the school.

The mystery lingered until I happened to be reading the CJB Policies and Procedures (because I’m a hopeless geek).  One section of the policies reads, “As per a decision made by the Attorney General in 1989, the Student Government Association and all branches thereof (executive, legislative, and judicial) are not subject to the Missouri Sunshine law.”  So I guess that settles it.

Not quite.

After wandering lost and confused on the Missouri Attorney General’s website, I found that the opinion CJB is referring to was rendered in 1987, not 1989.  If someone can find an ’89 opinion on the site related to SGA, please let me know.

Also, the AG issues opinions, not “decisions.”  Decisions are made by courts.  You’d think the CJB would realize the distinction.

The opinion says that SGA is not a Public Governmental Body unless it acts with delegated authority from the Board of Governors or exercises de facto authority with the tacit approval of the Board.

The attorney general is pretty clear on his stand, but his opinion is just that, an opinion.  A very well informed opinion, but an opinion nonetheless.  It doesn’t have the force of law.  The only way to find out for sure is to bring the matter before a judge and have the judge interpret the law.  That would be a “decision.”

And there is language in the Sunshine Law describing “advisory committees” at the direction of a Public Governing Body who recommend policy revisions on expenditure of public funds.  I think an argument could be made that SGA was acting as such an “advisory committee” when it recommended the sustainability fee to the Board of Governors, and in other such actions that involve public money.

So I think it’s a bit misleading for CJB to say that the Sunshine Law doesn’t apply.  It would be more apt to say it probably doesn’t apply, or we believe it doesn’t apply.

Ultimately, whether SGA is or is not subject to Sunshine isn’t the point.  My new question is, why not just adopt the Sunshine Law standards voluntarily?

They really aren’t all that strict.  The law mainly requires that all records be made available and that a custodian of records be responsible for handling record requests.  It also has some other basic requirements about posting meeting times and the format of meeting minutes.  That’s it.

You can dream up other punishments besides the $1,000 fines outlined in the law.  Just so long as you have a commitment to keeping a complete, continuous record of operation.

This is the easy stuff, folks.  Anyone in government should want to become more open, it’s not controversial.  A good step in that direction would be for SGA to embrace the spirit of the Sunshine Law, and not hide behind a twenty year old opinion from the Attorney General.

(That Attorney General, by the way, was William L. Webster.  Six years after he issued this opinion, he pleaded guilty and got two years on charges of embezzlement and fraud.)

As the Student Government Association transitions into the 2009-2010 session, the new administration would do well to look into record-keeping practices at SGA that are at best suspicious and at worst illegal.

On February 23, The Underground requested SGA budget and attendance records going back to 2005, the year that SGA became wholly funded by student fees.

It took 18 days for SGA to produce this year’s budget, and no explanation for the delay was given outside of being busy.

The attendance information provided for the current year was incomplete, as it didn’t list the names or total number in attendance for many of the meetings.

Courtney Wendell, a junior and SGA’s director of public relations, referred reporters to the SGA archive in Meyer Library to obtain attendance and budget information from previous years. However, there were no recent attendance records on file, and the most recent complete budget in the archive dates back to 1993.

Missouri’s Sunshine Law states that all records of public governmental bodies, with certain explicit exceptions, shall be open to public inspection.

The law also mandates that such bodies appoint a custodian of records, who will respond within three business days in writing to any records request.

It also states that in the minutes of public meetings, a record of members both absent and present will be included.

Currently, SGA minutes do not include information on attendance.

Jon Stubblefield, sophomore and SGA’s sergeant-at-arms, said that sign-in sheets, the method of taking attendance at Senate meetings, are used primarily to track absences and determine if a quorum is present.

“When I first took on the position, I don’t know if I counted everyone in attendance,” Stubblefield said, “but since January I’ve had a numerical count.”

Overall attendance numbers and trends are not collected or reported to anyone.

Additionally, in the Bylaws of the Senate, Article I, Section 2, Paragraph A states that minutes will be available in the Senate office and, “on the SGA website no later than 5 p.m. one day prior to the next meeting.”

The minutes from February 17, 24 and from March 3 were not posted on the website until March 13.
As of press time, minutes from SGA meetings since March 3 are not on the website.

Far from a small matter, Article IV, Section 9, Paragraph D of the SGA Constitution states that SGA officers are subject to impeachment by the Senate for, “failure to uphold this constitution and its bylaws.”

SGA does not have a custodian of records position, but Ashley Hoyer, junior and SGA’s chief of staff, said that she is in charge of keeping records and uploading minutes to the website.

SGA has no equivalent to an inspector general or government accountability office, according to Hoyer.

“Our Senate is our accountability office,” she said. However, in the SGA Constitution, the Senate is not given the power to conduct investigations, compel witnesses, or audit records.

Without a complete record, nor a clear charge of responsibility for checking and auditing records, accountability becomes impossible.

For example, Wendell said there were significant decreases in the amount of payroll taken by the cabinet in the past couple of years.

“I’ve only taken six hours (of payroll) this semester. Whitney (Paul) works entirely for free,” Wendell said.

As of December 2008, salaries in the current budget accounted for 40 cents of the one dollar charge each student pays to support SGA. This is roughly in line with the amount spent in 1993 (thirty-nine percent).

But, without recent budgets to compare, it’s impossible to gauge how much progress is being made in saving money, or even whether Wendell’s statement is accurate.

The SGA Senate Archival Act of 2009, passed on February 3 of this year, begins to address the problem of record keeping.

It mandates that all resolutions, memoranda, executive papers, and Campus Judicial Board decisions be delivered to the library archive and that all those documents from the current session and the past two sessions be available in SGA’s Document Management System, a computer based system.

However, attendance and voting records are not addressed in the act and neither are budgets.

There is also no mention of a system for organizing the records or summarizing their content, making it onerous for students or SGA members to sift meaningful information from the data.

The act does not create a system for handling open record requests, nor does it charge any officer or committee with investigating and auditing records.

In fact, some of its practices may be in violation of Missouri’s Sunshine Law, which requires government entities to make available information about their meetings and activities to the general public.

But rather than pointing fingers and placing blame, we instead are calling SGA to action.

It is time to appoint an independent SGA auditor, a person paid to assist in record keeping, but also given the authority to make sure SGA meets all open record requirements as spelled out in Missouri’s Sunshine Law.

The independent auditor should also generate weekly reports about SGAs activities and provide them online for the students.

It is time to hold our governing body accountable for its actions. It is impossible for students to make accurate judgments concerning the performance of individual senators and SGA as a whole when simple documents like budgets, attendance, and voting records are either unavailable or incomplete.

SGA touts itself as the “official voice of the student body at Missouri State University,” according to its website.
It is time for it to start acting the part and get its house in order with proper, responsible record keeping.

With the upcoming transition to a new administration, now is a perfect time for SGA to make the necessary changes and appoint an independent auditor.

-Zach Becker
For the Editorial Board