On Feb. 3, Associated Students Chief Financial Officer Jacob Hoang placed a hold on the A.S. Office of External Affairs’ financial accounts due to procedural errors in purchasing plane tickets for the Harvard Latina Empowerment & Development Conference, which prevented UC San Diego students from attending. The A.S. Senate voted on Feb. 5 to lift this hold.
A collective of Latinas who were supposed to attend the Harvard LEAD conference explained the impact of this funding freeze in a written statement to The UCSD Guardian.
“The effects of the wrongful freezing of the Vice President of External Affairs funds was unnecessary and scary as [Eduardo Tapia Jr-Urbieta’s UC Student Association] goals directly align in collaboration with marginalized communities,” they wrote. “The thought of his entire budget being taken away was not only frustrating but shocking that those actions and decisions could happen so quickly.”
Hoang initiated the freeze because he noticed errors in purchases completed by Vice President of External Affairs Eduardo Tapia Jr-Urbieta. During the Feb. 5 meeting, Hoang outlined the instances wherein Tapia Jr-Urbieta failed to properly follow procedures for spending beginning Jan. 19.
According to Hoang’s timeline, Tapia Jr-Urbieta failed to obtain student certification for business-related travel. Student certification refers to a student being cleared by both the A.S. Senate and the University to conduct travel, and each student travelling must be certified. He claims Tapia Jr-Urbieta also made purchases for travel before his request was approved in Concur, the system used by A.S. to track travel expenses.
Hoang elaborated further on the events leading to the freeze in an interview with The Guardian.
“An unauthorized purchase on a pending request was made,” he said. “While the request was still pending, the Office of External Affairs still made that purchase, disregarding the hold. And so, I had to act immediately, as well as the fact that based on University policy, if you are travelling with non-UCSD workers that are going to be on UCSD business travel, they need to have the proper documentation in order to be cleared.”
Hoang sponsored the motion to unfreeze the Office of External Affairs accounts during the A.S. Senate meeting on Feb. 5. During the interview, he said this motion was to avoid any further negative impacts on student services.
Prior to the vote to unfreeze the funds, multiple senators and executive board members shared their thoughts on the situation. In a written statement to The Guardian, A.S. Vice President Vanna Hoang stated why she felt the funds should be unfrozen.
“I felt it would have been immoral for me to not speak up about a situation where a fellow executive member was being wrongly accused of malicious intent,” she said. “I am confident that Eduardo and CFO Jacob Hoang will work together to lay down the foundation to proper spending guidelines and processes for situations that are similar to this.”
Tapia Jr-Urbieta reacted to the vote in a written comment to The Guardian.
“I am glad that the Senate voted to unfreeze my office spending and understood that this situation was an innocent mistake, because our students deserve access to resources that facilitate their growth during their higher education journeys.”
According to both Jacob Hoang and Tapia Jr-Urbieta, the A.S. Senate is still negotiating to recover the money from the canceled plane tickets. In his statement to The Guardian, Tapia Jr-Urbieta wrote that both he and Hoang are working with the Student Life Business Office and the airline from which the tickets were purchased to explore available options.
The two also acknowledged the need for financial oversight to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.
Jacob Hoang stated that the A.S. Senate remains committed to transparency with the student body moving forward.
“I do want to reassure the student body that A.S. remains committed to financial responsibility, transparency, and supporting student initiatives,” he said. “This is an opportunity for us to refine the process, so that we don’t have to run into it again, and we are committed to making improvements that will benefit students in the long run.”
Tapia Jr-Urbieta also suggested that the A.S. Senate takes steps to address gaps in current policy by establishing guidelines to make conferences more accessible to students and providing planning timelines.
In their statement, the collective also expressed their perspective on how A.S. should move forward.
“This is the amount of accountability and reparations that should be standard when you cause harm to a whole community on this campus,” they said. “We hope this sets a precedent for coming to A.S. public forums and speaking up when you feel decisions being made aren’t in your best interest because it is our money as students we should have a big say in where the money goes.”
