KAIST 18 | Undergraduate Student Council

[Translated by Harrison Lee]

305-701 373-1 Tel: 042-869-2072
Fax: 042-864-4335

Sent by 18 Undergraduate Student Council Document No: 04-08-04-70
Received by Student Support Team Date Sent: 4 Aug 04
Reference Attached Document No. of Sheets: 2
Title RE: Request to Open Parents Trust Fund and General Account

1. We wish your prosperity.
2. Last May we received from you the details of the Estimated Budget and Closing Account of the Parent Trust Fund and General Account from 2001 through 2004. However, the details you sent us were too poor for us to determine whether the fund is being spent properly or not.
3. The disclosed data contained numerous errors, such as units written written incorrectly and total sums that do not match. In particular, the balance of Parents Trust Fund of previous year and the balance carried over to next year do not match. (Please refer to the attached document for details.)
4. Chungnam University disclosures annual budget details in a book with more than 400 pages. We, the students, demand disclosure of details such as those below, in order to reassert our rights as members of the school and to help the budget be used properly.
- Details of the Estimated Budget and Closing Account of the Parents Trust Fund and General Account of 2001, 2002, and 2003.
- Details of the Estimated Budget of 2004
- Minutes of Parents Trust for 2003 and 2004.

KAIST Undergraduate Student Council


18th Undergraduate Student Council


Attachment

1. It looks increasingly to us as though the General Account and Parents Trust Account have duplicated appropriations. For example, II. "School Affair Business Expense" contains an item labeled "Daeduck KAIST School Affair Expense". More than 24 billion won - 24.2 billion won in 2004 - has been appropriated annually for this expense. We suspect that the details of the Daeduck KAIST School Affair Expense are similar to those of Parents Trust Account, and thus that these two accounts might be duplicated appropriations. We demand an explanation for this apparent duplication.
2. The Parents Fund balance of previous year and the balance carried over of next year do not match. In fact, they don't even match when the Daeduck KAIST balance is added to that of Seoul Techno branch. We demand a clear explanation of this irregulatiry.
3. The Parents Trust Tund is not being spent in accordance with its stated purpose. We judge that some expenditure items - Staff Expense, Retirement Grants, Public Relations Expense, etc. - do not match the stated objective of "Securing urgently needed education facilities and education activities which the nation cannot support." We demand an explanation for this inconsistency.
4. The meanings items specified on Parents Trust account are unacceptably vague. For example, we do not understand what "Management Fee", "Facility Fee", "Maintenance Fee", and "Asset Purchase Fee" mean, what they are for and what specific things they designate for purchase. We also find that items like "Student Guidance Measures Fee", "Student Support Activity Fee", and "School Affairs Activity Fee" etc. look so similar that we cannot identify their purpose and use. Therefore, we find it impossible to understand whether the fund is being used properly through these disclosed details.
5. Other national universities disclose details of the Parent Fund Account and General Account. For example, ChungNam University, which is located close from KAIST, discloses budget details by publishing a book with more than 400 pages every year. Although both schools are national, they are are different in that KAIST "disclosed" its Estimate Budget and Closing Account with only one page.
6. KAIST students have been alienated by KAIST's recalcitrance in disclosing the details of it Parents Trust Fund. According to a straw poll taken after KAIST's superficial disclosure, a large fraction of KAIST students believe the response to be inadequate and that KAIST's management of the Parent Fund is untrustworthy.
7. For the reasons stated above, it is necessary to disclose of the details of Parents Fund and General Account. KAIST students want this and, moreover, it is something that must be carried out in a democratic university. We demand immediate disclosure of the details of Parents Fund and General Account.