The Student Government Association disregards its students. No other explanation exists for an organization that takes almost half of its constituents’ money for itself and treats accountability systems as a joke. SGA siphons nearly $50,000 from students annually and has almost nothing to show for it. It acts as a satirical branch of the UT San Antonio administration, rotting from the inside and plaguing the rest of the university.
So far, the SGA has failed to publicly disclose its previous annual budgets despite requests from students. Instead, The Paisano received the SGA’s annual budgets from fall 2021 to February 2026 through the Texas’ Public Information Act. The PIA requires government bodies to disclose public information upon request.
Students fully pay for the SGA’s operations through a mandatory fee, and according to its budgets, students only received an average of 51.9% back through services and events. Although tracking specific expenditures remains nearly impossible, since the SGA event spending is almost all coated with blanket terms, their 2025-2026 budget offers some insight. Of the money students do receive, nearly all of it goes into supplementing existing campus events. This academic year, $10,000 — 20% of the budget — was spent on free shirts and thousands more for snacks. Students are not impacted by the extra shirt in their closet but do feel the hole in their wallets from money senselessly wasted.
When students ask their representatives questions, administrators and the SGA advisor answer instead. Advisor Chanteà Swinson-Rhoe even goes so far as to lie to students. Even though Swinson-Rhoe claimed the SGA is “making all the purchases, but the whole [SGA] budget can’t just solely go to [menstrual products],” their actual budgets indicate that the SGA has not spent money on its feminine hygiene initiative since September 2024.
After a job poorly done, the SGA then swallows the remaining funding whole — freely engorging itself without consequence. Incapable officers are paid stipends and attend semesterly conferences, exceeding 20% and 10% of the budget on average, respectively. The association thought itself so important in the 2023-2024 school year, it gave officers stipends worth 29.6% of the budget, violating the by-laws cap of 25%. Altogether, the student government indulges itself with 42.9% of its budget — the other 5.2% being unidentifiable.
With so much student money being thrown around, it might be natural to hope that the people running this association are qualified or at least know what they are doing. Unfortunately, they are not, and the system they have created allows for them to not need basic competency.
During the SGA’s April election, the races for student body treasurer and president were uncontested. Furthermore, nearly every candidate ran on vague, underdeveloped platforms, such as inexplicit promises of “student inclusivity” written on their candidate description. On the ballot, Student Body Treasurer Candidate Brody Barry summarized the embarrassing election best, writing only three words: “Transparency, honesty, trust.” Unopposed Presidential Candidate Mario Vento barely scraped together four poorly-written sentences and fully lacked a plan. Vento taking more stipend money is the only guarantee students have.
Since its founding, the SGA has failed to justify its existence. Students are forced to pay representatives who continuously promise to do better, but only offer pizza parties as compensation. When a tree branch rots, it is pruned; defund the SGA.
