HUA Pitches Constitutional Amendment to Increase Co-Treasurer Eligibility Requirements Ahead of Snap Election

When students vote to fill the Harvard Undergraduate Association’s vacant inclusion officer position, they will also weigh a constitutional amendment that would require co-treasurer candidates to have prior experience on the Finance Team.

The amendment, introduced by HUA Co-Treasurers Polina Krumkachev ’29 and Jake A. Marino ’29 at a Sunday general meeting, is intended to ensure that candidates for the position have relevant experience before running for the seat.

Under the proposal, co-treasurer candidates would have to be active members of the Finance Team and generally have served during both the fall and spring semesters. Members who join the Finance Team in the spring semester would be eligible to run for the seat after one semester of service.

The amendment is intended to “significantly reduce the number of inefficiencies within the HUA,” according to Krumkachev. Under current rules, co-treasurer candidates do not need prior HUA or financial experience to run, she said, and could win the election based purely on popularity.

“We see this as a flaw in the system,” Krumkachev said. “Being a co-treasurer requires the mastery of many different types of software, as well as signing authority over roughly a million dollars.”

Marino added that requiring sustained service to run for co-treasurer would incentivize participation and retention in the HUA Finance Team.

“By tying eligibility for the co-treasurer position to sustained service across both semesters, members have a clear incentive to stay engaged with the team long term, rather than just treating it as a single semester commitment,” he said.

The requirement, Krumkachev argued, was necessary to ensure that the co-treasurers — who are tasked with “overseeing funding decisions for hundreds of student organizations on campus” and “representing the HUA to the college’s administration” — were equipped to fulfill their responsibilities.

“The principle behind this is that people responsible for our school student activity funds should have to demonstrate they understand the job before they’re elected to it, and not after,” she added.

When a student in the audience asked Marino whether he had previously served on the Finance Team under a co-treasurer he considered “ineffective,” Marino replied “yes” and did not elaborate.

Student organizations faced delayed HUA funding disbursements in both the fall and spring semesters last academic year. Last year’s co-treasurers — Rachel M. Fields ’27 and now-HUA Co-President Daniel Zhao ’28 — attempted to shift the payment system to the Harvard Federal Credit Union’s internal transfer system, but faced continued slowdowns.

Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor and former HUA academic officer, said the amendment was particularly beneficial, calling the Finance Team the “most technically demanding.”

“I think that this, especially for this team, really makes sense to have some basic expectations,” he said. “You’re going to be leading a budget of thousands of dollars.”

Marino concurred, highlighting the team’s unique position as a functional rather than advocacy team and arguing that co-treasurers should be elected “solely” on merit.

“We are basically a cog in a machine, and we need to run as effectively as possible in order for all the other teams from the HUA to run as effectively as possible,” he added.

HUA Co-President Zachary “Zach” Berg ’28 said the HUA’s constitutional guidelines require amendments to be presented in the first three weeks of each semester. The amendment would require support from two-thirds of voters to pass and will appear on the ballot alongside the election for inclusion officer.

The election date remains to be finalized, but will likely fall within the next three weeks, Berg added in a later statement.

—Staff writer Theresa F. Bartelme can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at theresabartelme.15. Follow her on X @theresabartelme.