The effects of the budget crunch have been obvious to everyone during the past few months.

With the recent personnel cuts at the Department of Residence, a new, very unpleasant side of these financial difficulties has come to light.

Also in the recent past, we have seen faculty shortages, deferred maintenance and slashes to student financial aid programs – all of which have been attributed to the financial hardship the state is currently going through.

It is my contention that this current state of affairs must be related to some of the ridiculous kinds of financial policy that is all too prevalent. I mean, we are at the point of turning down thermostats to save money and yet we’ve only been hearing about these financial problems within the last few months.

Which begs the question, “Who’s watching the shop?” Something has led me to believe that one of the more basic responsibilities of our government is to institute sound economic policy. But for whatever reasons, that responsibility appears to be ignored.

Take for example Hawthorn Court. A name change to that area must surely involve some cost to the university. New signs, new brochures, as well as other behind the scenes paperwork have surely cost the university some money.

I’m sure Charles Fredricksen is a great guy, and I have no doubt that he was great as director of residence, but as long as the Board of Regents are going to approve an 18 percent tuition increase, doesn’t such a name change appear to be a less than critical expenditure?

Another example will be the new parking plan – $12.5 million to be spent on adding new parking. Never mind that most of the money will be spent on faculty parking.

Not to knock on the teachers here at Iowa State but faculty parking is far from the most important parking need. But wait – there are 600 new student lots on the way. Oh yeah, that’s right, they’re out by the stadium for Pete’s sake.

Once again, not exactly the kind of parking that this place is dying to have. Meanwhile parking fee increases and the nefarious parking fines will pay for this stuff.

That’s your standard fiscal policy – jack up the fees, then spend the money as quickly as it comes in on something silly and/or unnecessary.

This is the kind of policy we have seen in the past and undoubtedly a contributor to the current situation. Now I’m sure the recent national, and actually for the most part, international economic woes have played a huge part, but somehow I think that sound financial decisions early on might have helped us avoid a situation where we have $60 million in deferred maintenance.

That money has to be spent on renovations at some point, yet stuff keeps getting added to the list, while the available cash is budgeted for new parking spaces on the Orange Route.

I’ll be graduating in May, and moving on to something else. I have a lot of appreciation for the experience I have had here.

And even though I don’t get the joy of paying an extra 18 percent on my tuition (out-of-state, no less), it has become pretty clear that whoever is in charge of the flow of money into and out of the coffers has conveniently fallen asleep at the wheel, only to wake when it comes time to levy new fees on the unsuspecting student body.

But who are we kidding here? I like to think that the student body learned a long time ago to be very “suspecting” in matters pertaining to new line items on the ol’ U-bill.

Emeka Anyanwu is a senior in electrical engineering from Brooklyn, NY.