IRHA is an organization funded by a $14 fee paid by students living in residence halls, and great care is taken by the organization to make sure that money is spent appropriately.

Stephanie Sincox, Finance Director for IRHA, is responsible for making sure IRHA’s student funded budget is handled responsibly.

IRHA has the ability to audit organizations they feel misuse funds allocated to them by the organization. Each organization must provide an itemized list of how they plan to spend funds allocated to them by IRHA. According to Sincox, a misuse of funds would be not spending money as they promise to in their list.

If an organization is audited and found to have misused funds, they are liable to return the misused funds to IRHA.

“That is something we definitely look out for,” Sincox said.

Money isn’t given to groups outside of IRHA without being voted on by representatives. However, this still leaves the potential for funds to be spent in a way that is not in the best interest of residence hall students. Sincox believes this is rarely an issue.

“I think overall people are pretty happy with the decisions we make” Sincox said.

Sincox shared that IRHA representatives, which represent all residence halls on campus, go to their hall meetings where they get opinions from hall presidents who in turn get opinions from their halls. She feels that accountability for spending comes from this bottom up flow of information.

“It’s getting that information up the food chain and making sure everyone gets their opinion to decide what we’re doing,” Sincox said.

Overall Sincox feels that she and other members or IRHA keep the best interest of students in mind when deciding how to spend their funds. During meetings, representatives regularly make sure that events they fund will benefit all residence hall students and not a limited group.

“It’s very important to me and the rest of the team that everything we do is for the benefit of the students we represent,” Sincox said.

At the top of IRHA leadership is IRHA President, Scott Fisk. The president of IRHA has a long list of responsibilities including hiring the executive team, overseeing the organization, acting as a representative for IRHA, and meeting with administration. Fisk feels the main goal of his job is making sure the IRHA mission statement is carried out.

“I feel like it’s a very important position to the organization, making sure we accomplish our mission,” Fisk said.

IRHA gives its president another power, the power to veto legislation. Vetoes can be carried out when the president feels legislation is not effectively benefitting students, and can only be overridden by a 2/3 majority vote in parliament.

Fisk shares that the power to override legislation a majority of hall representatives are in favor of is a seldom used power, but feels it is a necessary one to have.

“It’s another check and balance which is very important to democracy,” Fisk said.

IRHA bylaws state that the meeting agenda should be available should be at 3:30 the day before a meeting, and minutes should be available at 5:00 the day after, though it does not specify to who.

Currently IRHA posts meeting minutes on its website, but meeting agendas are not available publicly.

Fisk shared that the agenda is available to members of parliament, but not the public. He also stated he was not responsible for the agenda being sent out, although he does oversee the organization.

Sharing the agenda for residence hall students to read, and give input on legislation that may come up, is something Fisk is in favor of. However, it is not something he promised to carry out.

Fisk also shared that Student Government follows similar rules, and to his knowledge does not post their agenda publicly.

“I personally think it would be a good thing if it was posted publicly,” Fisk said.

Cutlines

Twitter- IRHA goes to great lengths to make sure money is spent fairly and responsibly.

Facebook- IRHA does not currently make their agenda publicly available, but IRHA President, Scott Fisk, says he would be in favor of making that happen.