WTF is ACC

Last semester in a room of empty hands, not knowing much about the role or its responsibilities, I offered myself up to become the treasurer of a club. The sentiment was shared among the board as this was a relatively new organization. Engage? Finance tab? SGA? Budget presentation? I had no idea what to do. The then treasurer held a conference to explain the budget allocation process to all the fledgling student leaders. The process seemed slightly convoluted, mandating two presentations to two different student government bodies .

The preliminary review is made by the Activities and Clubs Committee. Enshrined by Annex IV of the student government constitution, the ACC acts as first response for the budget allocation review and process and it is therefore . As a club leader, my jerk reaction to hearing this was as follows:

              *Sets phone down*

              “Beurocratic Bullshit”

Because now, not only did my organization need to present to senate, but now we needed to present the exact same information to a group of students who  are also already on senate.

Playing Ping Pong

As I soon learned upon our first budget submission, however, This reaction, was completely misguided. It was not until I approached that eerie finance tab on our organization’s engage that I realized how little of an idea I had for our club’s organizational costs, sources, and allocation requirements. I did the best I could as treasurer, submitted the budget, and the president went to ACC. They said revise at a lower number. Back to square one. Revise, back to ACC. ACC approved it, then the next Wednesday, we presented it to senate. Senate tabled. Back to square one. Back and forth, back and forth. We were playing ping pong and every swing lost hundreds. But the year went great. We were under budget.

The Game – Good Cop Bad Cop

The next semester, however, I was invited to sit on the very committee that rejected, revised, and rebutted my club’s budget four short months ago. After the first several sessions, I understood. It was our job to say no, the club’s job to convince us yes, hoping that somewhere in the middle or along the way we would arrive at a reasonable direction. Money is power and power used thoughtlessly begets issues. Students are busy, club members will over ask in fear of being faced with their club or rent. On the other hand, students will (reasonably) outrage if their hard earned tuition dollars aren’t sufficient for a simple Comfort Club Picnic that they deserve after busting a sweat over MIS.  Now I was on the opposite side – I had to question, scrutinize, poke and pry every allocation. With 134 budget requests in our inbox an open gate approval process  would seize clubs and students would be left footing the bill. Furthermore, if senate had to overlook each budget request, bickering would commence and only one motion would be discussed every hearing.  

Lessons Learned

If American styled higher education provides anything, paramount I would argue, it provides the opportunity to fuck up and get away with it. A forgotten decimal place in calc one, a wrong date in American Civ., or a mistyped negative sign in computational finance are all preferrable in consequence to their equivalents as a bankers, diplomats, or CFOs. Likewise, our student governments should teach us similar lessons. That this three headed process undertaken by SGA, ACC, and Student leaders happens hundreds of times every day in real committees to actionable projects in 173 countries and countless more states and counties. Therefore, by learning the skills to justify, defend, question, and budget in our education, we can serve our constituents and neighbors more efficaciously in our careers. The U.S.’ House & Senate Appropriations Subcommittees, EU’ European Parliament Committee on Budgets (BUDG) and many others require skills that can be developed at this university. Therefore, if you have even the slightest interest in finance or ending up on now of these committees or related organizations, I would highly recommend reaching out to the next year’s treasurer or becoming a treasurer yourself.