The Allegheny Student Government voted down an applicant for the organization’s director of the treasury and heard an update on ASG’s overall financial situation during the longest General Assembly of the semester on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

The final item on the agenda was to approve Andrew Strobel, ’24, to be the new director of the treasury. Strobel, the only applicant for the position, was described by ASG Vice President Sam Ault, ’26, as having “significant leadership experience and extensive background in finance.” Strobel’s cover letter and resume were linked in the meeting’s minutes — which as of Thursday at noon were not posted to ASG’s Engage page.

However, the Senate shot down Strobel’s nomination without any discussion; the vote was split 4-4, with seven senators abstaining. A 50-50 split meant the motion failed, according to Parliamentarian Ankitha Pamula, ’25.

After the vote, Senator Ray Colabawalla, ’25, motioned for a discussion to allow senators to explain their vote.

“For the three years that I’ve been here, I’ve seen all three directors of the treasury heavily struggle with the position,” said Colabawalla, who abstained from the vote. “It is a position that takes up far too much time to go unpaid for one individual student.”

Colabawalla cited three former ASG treasurers, who he said described a workload of anywhere from eight to 15 hours per week. He added that a student could spend that time working a job on campus for actual money.

“That’s why we have no applications for it,” Colabawalla said. “It’s not that there’s a lack of financial students or students that want to have something of economic pedigree on their resumes. No: it’s simply because it’s far too much of a time commitment for far little of a reward.”

One solution that had already been discussed by the Finance Committee is dividing the responsibilities among two directors of the treasury, according to Senator Lyndsey Robinson, ’24.

“The job is so much for one person,” Robinson said, who voted no on Strobel. “You’re spending anywhere from eight to fifteen hours a week on just this, let alone on top of your schoolwork and whatever else you have going on.”

After the meeting, Dean for Student Life Trae Yeckley estimated the time commitment to be smaller.

“When done correctly, it’s done within five to 10 hours a week,” Yeckley said.

Yeckley is currently acting as ASG’s interim director of the treasury, after Hunter Goerman, ’25, resigned from the position at the beginning of this month.

Strobel, who was asked to leave the room for the vote and subsequent discussion, returned and spoke up during the “Constituent Comment” period. He asked what ASG’s plan would be to manage the treasury without a director.

“Will that just be by Finance Committee, or by Trae? Because that’s my concern — that you continue to put the workload on the Dean of Student Life, the Finance Committee.”

Colabawalla replied that he and a group of other senators were already drafting an amendment to the ASG Constitution that would split the treasurer position into a pair of co-directorships, while retaining the current four-person Finance Committee.

“That way we have a much larger team working on it together,” Colabawalla said. “Realistically, this would add very little extra pressure on Dean Yeckley because this should be out by the time Thanksgiving break is done and then within a couple of weeks it’ll be approved.” 

Earlier in the meeting, the Senate had voted to cancel next week’s GA on Tuesday, Nov. 21, and after President Nicole Recio Bremer, ’25, noted just before the meeting closed that there are now just three GAs left in the semester. Since constitutional amendments require approval during two straight GAs, the amendment would take effect no earlier than Dec. 5 — nine days before final exams begin.

After the meeting

The conversation continued after the GA closed at 8:53 p.m. Outside of room 301/302, where the GA was held Strobel spoke with Robinson, Colabawalla , Senator Aubrey Carion, ’27, and Goerman, who was serving that evening as a proxy for Senator Kyra Jordan, ’25.

After the conversation ended, Strobel walked away from the group and towards the ASG office, where Recio Bremer, Ault, and Yeckley had gone right after the GA ended.

“I don’t appreciate being talked to like that,” Strobel said as he walked across the third floor of the campus center.

When contacted via email, Robinson declined to comment and referred The Campus to the conversation in GA. Colabawalla, Carion, and Goerman did not respond to emailed requests for comment. Strobel declined to comment on the conversation, and submitted a Letter to the Editor to The Campus in lieu of providing comment for this story. That letter has been published online at alleghenycampus.com, can be viewed here.

Surplus Fund

The treasurer discussion was not the only financial conversation that happened Tuesday night: Yeckley, as the guest speaker for the evening, provided another overview of ASG’s financial system. Included in that review was the announcement of the size of the Surplus Fund, which Yeckley set at $503,420.83.

This number is around $150,000 smaller than what ASG’s public finance reports would suggest.

During the 2022-23 academic year, The Campus reported that ASG had a total budget of $783,711, based on numbers provided by the college administration. ASG’s regular spending reports from last year’s GAs show that a total of $129,148.83 was spent from all funds during the 2022-23 academic year — which would suggest a surplus fund of more than $650,000. 

In a follow-up email Thursday morning, Yeckley wrote that ASG had spent a total of $42,388 from the Surplus Fund last year — around $15,600 more than what was reported during General Assemblies last year.

They also wrote that $138,858 was left unspent from the General Fund at the end of last year. Based on the starting General Fund amount of $367,793, that number would mean clubs spent a total of $228,935 from the General Fund last year. Only around $100,000 of that was reported during GA.

One possibility is that the numbers given at GA did not include club budget spending. Club leadership did receive periodic updates of the total balance of all club budgets via email; one such report from March 7 showed that clubs had spent around $98,000 from their budgets up until that point in the year. Additional club budget spending from March 7 until the end of the spring semester almost two months later may account for the remaining $30,000 spent but not reported at GA.

ASG will next meet on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in room 301/302 of the Henderson Campus Center.