$10,000 Missing - UWM Student Presidents Implicated

repost Jesse Dercks, 05.10.2006 18:46

UWM student government attempts to line their own pockets.

A check signed by Russ Rueden for $10,000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Former Student Presidents Under Fire for Illicit Spending

Milwaukee, Wis. September 27 - Two former presidents of UW-Milwaukee's Student Housing Administrative Council (SHAC) are currently under investigation concerning a $10,000 check cashed this August.

Suspicion arose mid-summer when former SHAC president, Matt Franson, still had not returned the organization's funding checkbook, but all of the information did not come to light until the current SHAC president, Jesse Dercks, discovered the $10,000 transaction when he received the August account statement. This led to an investigation concerning the expenditure.

"I just thought it was odd for such a large transaction to go through at that particular time," said Dercks. Investigators then found that another former SHAC and Student Association president, Russell Rueden, was also involved in the unauthorized transaction.

Franson wrote the check out to an advertising firm called AcerPrudens, owned by Rueden.

"It didn't make sense for a check to be written out to an advertising firm, since we have the Program Services Center, a section of the residence hall that handles all of our advertising," said Dercks.

Another cause for suspicion surrounding the check was the fact that no services were received, no contact was made between the company and SHAC, the website for the business has no background or information, and nothing about the expenditure was approved in the student senate.

The investigation will continue in hopes of getting the money returned to the student budget.