As the treasurer of a student group, I was recently informed that our group had gone slightly over budget for an event. This being the case, I decided to look closely into the charges billed to our organization’s account. What I found illustrates a complete abuse of student groups and an exploitation of the student activity fee by certain services provided by various divisions of Dartmouth, such as the Hopkins Center and the Office of Conferences and Special Events. This is a serious problem that the College should address.
When a student group (at least the vast majority of regular student groups beneath the Council on Student Organizations) plans to put on a large event, the Office of Conferences and Special Events will bill for various associated services. Rather than providing organizations with a breakdown of the expected costs, Conferences and Special Events claims the costs will not be known until after the event and only gives an estimate. This may or may not correspond to what actually ends up being charged to a student group. Would any private business (or individual, for that matter) enter into a contract in which a firm quote was not given before the work began? Would you expect to give contractors a blank check to charge whatever they please? Given my experience dealing with Conferences and Special Events, it would seem that they are asking groups to put on events without letting them know the real costs associated with them. The result? I received a convoluted and confusing report letting me know that (surprise!) things went over budget. To make matters worse, event-related charges are allowed to be billed to student organizations nearly two months after an event.
Aside from the issue of not giving students an accurate estimate of all the costs associated with an event, in this particular event there seemed to be egregious overbilling. To illustrate my personal example, let’s consider an event that took place in Spaulding Auditorium last quarter. The event ran from 7:30-9 p.m., yet the Safety and Security payroll for three officers present amounted to nearly $500.
However, perhaps even more astounding are the “set-up” costs. Excluding the significant work performed by student employees, there was a charge of $1,020.21 in labor and benefits, surreptitiously concealed across confusing and different line items. To break it apart, I had to work through “6232-SAL UNION STAFF TEMP IATSE Union,” “6213-SAL UNION STAFF TEMP IATSE,” “6515-FB DEPT CHARGES-Union Full Benefits,” “6516-FB DEPT CHARGES,” et cetera. These sorts of explanations of charges were all that was provided to me as a student group treasurer.
Digging into it, I found that the $1,020.21 in labor costs came from four employees working around the clock as stagehands, logging a solid seven hours each, taking 28 hours to set up and take down two small tables and a podium. By all accounts, based on the work done in “stage prep,” it would have been difficult for even one employee to have claimed and justified that seven solid hours of work had gone into the production. However, this ended up being 28 hours of “work” — at a cost of $36.43 per hour. The money to pay for this event and others like it come directly from the student activity fee, and it is grossly unethical to overcharge to this degree. If most productions are put on in this manner (with employees paid $36.43 per hour for doing work that comparable student employees are paid considerably less), it is no wonder that COSO burns through a budget of over $250,000 in the fiscal year. If the experience I had in organizing this event is the modus operandi at Dartmouth, then Dartmouth students and the organizations they run are being robbed blind, one event at a time.
