Gaius Ilupeju divulged the wrongdoing during the Oct. 3 ASUCD Senate meeting, before ASUCD officials attempted to stifle publication of the issue
By VINCE BASADA — campus@theaggie.org
An unnamed former ASUCD unit director disregarded employment rules and interview bylaws, ASUCD President Gaius Ilupeju alleged at a public Oct. 3 ASUCD Senate meeting.
“We found out this summer during interviews that a former unit director wasn’t hiring as they were supposed to, according to the bylaws, and weren’t abiding by fair hiring practices,” Ilupeju said. “[This unit director] put up a vacancy and they didn’t actually do interviews. They had their friends apply or people they knew apply and didn’t have the right people sitting in on those interviews [or] sending employment forms.”
The unit and former director involved were not identified, and their motive/possible fiscal damages to the organization remain unknown. There was also no further information immediately given about the interviews that uncovered the mispractice or on any possible disciplinary action taken.
The reveal of these developments to the press, which also seemed to be new information to the room full of first-time senators and commission chairs, was made inadvertently. Ilupeju disclosed the misconduct to the senate table without registering the presence of a reporter from The California Aggie. No other individuals independent from the student government were present at the meeting at that time.
“If that [hiring violation] gets out of this room, we could be facing serious lawsuits,” Ilupeju said to his fellow student government officers.
Ilupeju and Internal Vice President Aaminah Mohammed attempted to strike his comments from the record and asked The California Aggie to refrain from publishing the information, a request to which The Aggie did not comply due to the Code of Ethics.
Ilupeju later provided a written statement when asked for comment.
“While we always strive to ensure that all of our units and services follow relevant policies to the best of their ability, that hasn’t always been the case in the past,” Ilupeju said.
“The event I was referencing occurred last year or the year prior, but I only recently learned about it when I assumed this role. We are doing everything we can to prevent this from occurring again.”
The information was revealed during a discussion over SB#1, enacting the ASUCD budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year as well as authorizing two capital projects to improve the services and operations of the Coffee House and Unitrans.
The initial draft of the bill included wording that asserted the right of the ASUCD Executive Office to “suspend the budget of any entity in violation of the ASUCD Constitution and Bylaws.” When asked by Senator Dhilena Wickramasinghe on the reasoning behind the inclusion of this clause, Ilupeju disclosed the alleged misconduct.
“Since we’ve given our units semi-autonomy, we don’t really scrutinize how they spend their budget,” Ilupeju said at the meeting. “We’ve had a lot of situations where people go over budget, and our current policy is that if [units] have debt, if they go over your budget, [and] if they end up spending more than they didn’t allocate, it comes out of general reserves.”
“That’s not fair to students because it means that we’re not being prudent with the money we’ve been given, and that’s not fair to other units,” Ilupeju said. “There’s some units that go above and beyond to make sure that they’re double checking numbers, including receipts.”
SB#1 was later passed unanimously, though with the section in question removed. Ilupeju also said at that time that he plans to hold closed session meetings to discuss the hiring misconduct further.
Written by: Vince Basada — campus@theaggie.org
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story reported that the proposed clause in Senate Bill #1 gives power to the Senate to suspend a units budget. However, SB#1 gives this power to the Executive Office.
