By including the University Student Advisory Board in the already-complicated budget process this year, the University administration has strung up more red tape -- this time hanging it where it clearly does not belong.

The administration has asked USAB to help select the student member of the President's Planning and Budget Committee this year.

As before, the Undergraduate Student Government, the Graduate Student Association and the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments will select candidates to work on the committee. But this year USAB must approve the candidates before their names are forwarded to University financial planners.

Administrators contend the extra review step will help eliminate the possibility of the University rejecting all nominees.

Student approval will not necessarily lead to administrative approval -- nor should it -- because the two groups often disagree. Previous USG leaders have supported an open budget, which the administration opposes. Including USAB does nothing more than add another step to an already cumbersome process.

But the decision to include USAB in the procedure is misguided for additional reasons.

The University Board of Trustees commissioned the formation of the University Student Executive Council -- USAB's forerunner -- in 1972, to serve as a forum for top student leaders and an advisory council to the University president.

The council was not created to act as a policy-making body. USAB, then, should not have the power to make or break committee candidates.

Further, the current membership of USAB has acted extremely irresponsibly this year. Members have failed to represent their constituencies by voting down a seat for the National Panhellenic Council last week; they have discarded all auspices of accountability by repeatedly holding closed meetings.

The administration, if it is truly concerned with student representation , should not even consider giving such power to this current group of student leaders.

To simplify the budget process, officials need to reconsider their decision to give USAB authority it should not hold.