Council Bounces Checks To Students

The Undergraduate Council bounced about 90 checks to students, student groups and others in recent months, resulting in fines for insufficient funds, council leaders said this week.

Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 said the bounced checks, which were intended to pay off student grants and events such as Springfest, resulted from delays in the disbursement of council money by Harvard to the council’s Fleet checking account.

Council Secretary Jason L. Lurie ’05 wrote in an e-mail that the council would be fined more than $1,873 because of the checks. Mahan said that he did not know exactly how many people had been affected by the checks, or how much fine money the council had incurred.

“We go and request a check, we usually ask for $20,000, and then there is a two-week lag period where it is being processed by University Hall,” Mahan said. “We basically wrote checks on money we didn’t have.”

Mahan said that unusually high expenses at the end of the spring semester exacerbated the problem.

“At the end of the year we had all of these bills for [April’s Busta Rhymes concert], Springfest and grants and the lag time just killed us,” Mahan said.

Lurie was displeased by the bounced checks.

“Wasting $1873 in addition to students’ fees, which I’m told the UC will reimburse, in addition to the hassle this is causing for so many students, is a pretty big deal,” Lurie wrote.

Joshua A. Barro ’05—the former council treasurer and former council Finance Committee chair who ran against Mahan in the fall’s presidential election and later resigned from the council—said 93 checks had bounced in late May and early June. Each bounced check carries a $20 penalty in addition to other fees, he said.

Barro blamed council officers, rather than insufficient funds from the University, for the bad checks.

“In this case, they absolutely did have enough money to do [grant packages] properly,” Barro said. “They just didn’t have enough competence to do it properly.”

Lurie echoed Barro’s statements, citing poor management on the part of council officers.

“The account was overdrawn in large part of because of poor recordkeeping by the Council Treasurer and lack of oversight of the UC’s financial records by the other two individuals with check signing authority: Matt and [council Vice President Michael R. Blickstead ’05],” Lurie wrote.

Mahan acknowledged that the problem was due in part to miscommunication between him and council Treasurer Oulu Wang ’06, but added that he and Blickstead are currently working on reforming the system.

“We are going to request that the treasurer give us a printout of the Fleet account and we would then prohibit the treasurer from writing checks for money we don’t actually have in the account,” Mahan said.

Mahan also said that he was working to revise the system by which University Hall administers funds to the council.

“On the University side of things we are looking to expedite the process or allow the U.C. to get more funds at once,” Mahan said.

Currently all of the council’s funds provided by students through their termbills is received by University Hall and then disbursed to the council as money is requested by the council president.

In years past, the council has been limited to requesting $20,000 at a time, but according to Mahan, University Hall had recently loosened this restriction. Mahan cited a recent instance in which administrators gave the council $40,000 at once, but said he did not know if there had been a formal change in policy.

Mahan said there was still a two-week processing lag between the time of the request and the time that funds are actually deposited in the council’s account.

Lurie—who discovered the problem not in his official role on the council, but when trying to deposit a bad check from the council as part of a grant to Demon magazine—said he was disappointed in Mahan’s failure to inform students of the financial mishap.

“[Mahan] had yet to release a statement informing the campus of this problem,” Lurie wrote. “I want to make sure that all student groups who received no-good checks from the Council know to go through their records and get reimbursed in full if necessary.”

Mahan said that he responded to any e-mail inquiries explaining the situation. He also said that he had arranged for checks to be cut immediately for anybody whose financial needs were time-sensitive.

Mahan said he mentioned the problem at several council meetings in May, but that he didn’t have the time to make a formal announcement to the student body.

“We talked about it at some of our final meetings,” Mahan said. “I don’t have time to go out and hold up a big sign saying this happened. I was more concerned about getting people their money.”

Melissa A. Conway ’05, who tried to deposit a bad $500 check from the council on behalf of the Family Help Desk, said the situation was never explained to her despite inquiries to the council after the check bounced. Conway said the council merely told her to deposit the check promptly when she received it.

“I was informed when I received the check that we should deposit it pretty quickly because they may have insufficient funds,” Conway said.

Both Barro and Lurie expressed concern over the council’s ability to manage what is expected to be a much larger budget this year as a result of the recent hike in the term bill student services fee from $35 to $60.

“This certainly doesn’t speak well to their ability to handle extra finances,” Barro said. “I would advise students not to pay their U.C. fee this year. It doesn’t show the U.C. to be a responsible steward of their $60.”

But Mahan said he is confident the council can handle the increase in finances with modifications in current University policies.

“If we are handling more money, we need to renegotiate the way the University handles our money,” Mahan said. “We need to have the ability to have $80,000 transferred into our account immediately.”

—Timothy J. McGinn contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Evan M. Vittor can be reached at evittor@fas.harvard.edu.