The student council of the Dept. of English Language & Literature (ELL) in Pusan National University (PNU) used a considerable amount of student union fees for their dining expenses. However, ELL got the highest point of  settlement of accounts and became a huge problem. 

According to the student council of College of Liberal Arts and ELL in 2021, the student council's dining fees were three times more than the major's event cost in the second half-year. It is written in the council's statement that they used 571,900 won on cafe and dining fees versus only 182,400 won on school events. 

In other words, the amount used for the student council's food expenses is three times more than the cost of school events.

According to the No. 15 of the Financial Management Rules of PNU, Activity costs can be used incidentally, excluding regular/non-regular project expenses. However, excessive dining by the student council is an act that goes against the primary direction of No. 2 that financial management should be used for the benefit of all members.

The start of the argument was a post put up on "Everytime," an anonymous online community for college students, on February 22nd. The writer revealed himself as a student of ELL and brought up the subject by sharing the SNS image of the student council announcing the settlement of student membership fees last year. The post soon became a controversial topic with many comments, such as opinions that they didn't want to pay for the school council dinner.   

In addition, the results of the last audit of ELL were 100 points, which is becoming more controversial. The College of Humanities student council said that there is no problem with the audit itself as it proceeds in compliance with the commonly accepted 'Detailed Audit Rules of the Student Council.' Currently, our university's auditors assign scores based on compliance with the deadline for submitting data (10 points), the existence of audit data (50 points), degree of agreement between the budget and settlement plans (40 points). 

As audit items concentrate on the simple procedure, expenditure items are classified as areas unrelated to the audit. This is why ELL student council received 100 points even after spending three times the cost of the significant event for food expenses.

The College of Humanities' student council announced that it would create "Detailed rules for self-audit of humanities colleges" to prevent similar events. "In the case of the college, it was a problem as the process disappeared after the outbreak of COVID-19." Moon Yeon-Ji (Dept. of Philosophy, 17), student president of the College of Humanities, said. "We will make a self-audit rule and include it in the standard. The key is to take measures to prevent a recurrence."

Given that this is not just a problem with ELL, the impact is unlikely to subside easily. Most majors follow the "Detailed Rules for Audit of Student Councils" like humanities universities. In response, the emergency committee of the student council said, "We delivered some revisions and announcements to the student council of Humanities University. We are discussing some matters that need to be revised, including settlement of accounts."

There are also growing calls to guarantee members' right to know the details of the spending. As much as voluntarily paid, they want to know where and how the student membership fee is used. All organizations that use student membership fees shall disclose their budget and settlement proposals both online and offline without exception following Article 4, the first of the Financial Management Rules. 

However, as a result of its investigation by Channel PNU, it was revealed that only three of them, the Economics Department, Business Administration Department, and the School of Medicine released the settlement plan for the second half of 2021. Only 6 out of 15 colleges disclosed their statements. Departments that do not have an SNS account or have not posted for a long time were excluded from the survey.

Meanwhile, YOUNG ONE, a student council member of the ELL in 2021, said, "We are sorry that we have not been able to distinguish between the use of event subsidies and student membership fees. We apologize for the increase of the negative awareness." 

The Student Association 2022, VISION, said, "We participated in the Science Society Learning Center conducted by the Humanities University's Expansion Steering Committee about educating the budget and settlement deliberation and audit system. We will never make such a mistake again." 

By Kim Hyeon-Hee, Reporter

Translated by Shin Ji-Won, Reporter