In early September, the administration began investigating a check for $10,000 written by the Sandburg Halls Administrative Council (SHAC) to a company called AcerPrudens. The administration immediately began an internal audit of the council's financial records. The SHAC and SA are two different organizations with different bank accounts.
On Oct. 9, 2006, UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago requested the SA to submit financial information for the SA's private and Segregated University Fees (SUF) account. The SA private account contains money the association raised independently and does not belong to the school or the student population. It is not the same account from which the $10,000 was written, which has raised questions as to what link the administration saw between the SHAC and SA accounts. The administration has not explained the connection. An SA account has never previously been subject to an audit.
Following the Chancellor's request, SA President Samantha Prahl communicated to UWM Director of Internal Audits, Paul Rediski, that the SA will release the relevant financial information for both the SUF and private accounts. However, she stipulated the condition that the audit must be overseen by a third party because the SA is an independent student group. The SA felt it would be inappropriate for the administration to perform the audit. Rediski rejected the offer but did not explain why. The SA continued to press Rediski to accept the offer later, but Rediski consistently refused to do so.
Soon after, Prahl was asked to attend a meeting with Rediski, Interim Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs James Hill, and a UWM-System auditor on Oct. 20 to resolve the problem. The meeting was rescheduled after. Prahl explained that she would be unavailable on the given date because Hill had previously asked her to attend a Student Government Presidents meeting in LaCrosse, Wis.
However, while on her way to the conference, Prahl was informed that the UWM administration had locked the SA office with a different set of locks. A letter on the SA office door from Hill explained the administration was suspending the SA's access to University facilities and SUF support after the former refused to submit financial records.
Prahl promptly returned to UWM. The action effectively prevented the SA from performing its customary duties.
The SA immediately retained Attorney Teresa Rickert of the Brookfield law firm of Schmidt Rupke Tess-Mattner & Fox, S.C. The law firm began negotiating with the University administration to reopen SA offices and resolve the audit issue. They offered a solution to the University on Oct. 23, to which the administration never responded.
On Oct. 23, the University Police Department executed a search warrant for the SA offices. The warrant was issued the day SA members and attorneys were absent from the Union, through which warrants are customarily issued. They issued the warrant knowing that efforts were under way to resolve the private audit matters.
The police removed papers and every computer hard drive from the SA office, which completely disabled the association. They also took away papers irrelevant to the investigation, including documents about voter registration, neighborhood relations and Residential Preferred Parking (RPP).
The SA feels the administration, in disabling an independent student group, violated student rights. The association promises to continue working on behalf of the student body despite these setbacks.