4 Monday, July 16, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com the Michioan Dailu ALEXANDER HONKALA Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu GARY GRACA EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Rai&OT PORN, q3' E A IMRAN SYED EDITOR IN CHIEF Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely thesviews ofttheir authors. Credit limits Fraud problems reflect poorly on 'U' TIWT ith the University's state funding in jeopardy because of Lansing's amateur budget han- dling, you would think that motorcycle parts would be the last thing the University would be buying. But because of fraudulent purchases on University-issued credit cards, that's exactly what it spent thousands of dol- lars on in the last two years. Before this type of frivolous spending further jeopardizes the University's funding, this credit-card program needs an overhaul. PLANNED PARENTHOOD The ABCs of family planning When the University began issuing credit cards, or P-Cards, in 1995, the cards were designed to ease the bureaucratic process for employees to make work- related purchases. But because the program was poorly designed and lacked effective oversight, it also eased the process of cheat- ing the University. According to a University internal audit earlier this year, these questionable purchases total more than $300,000. The most recent example of the fraud involves a maintenance supervi- sor who purchased motorcycle parts and electronics between October 2004 and November 2006 with his P-Card. The pur- chaseswasted morethan $50,000 before the employee was caught. Among the many problems withthe P-Card program, includ- ing lax spending limits and an abundance of unnecessary cards, the largest problem is a flawed system of oversight. Individual P-Card accounts are supposed to be monitored by "approvers." Each approver is responsible for monitoring between 50 and 100 employees, and they usually do this by looking for purchases that exceed $5,000. Because these approvers are responsible for so many people and the monitor- ing system is not well defined, it's easy to evade suspicion. To the University's credit, it has already taken seriously some of the auditors' recommendations and curtailed the spending lim- its and the number of accounts. But these fixes are still limited by the University's failure to fix the structural problems with the pro- gram. If the University doesn't act soon, this scandal can be more than just an embarrassment. While the University has been adding up its credit-card bills, Michigan State University recent- ly imposed a 9.6 percent tuition increase to compensate for the state's funding cut. As the Univer- sity prepares to announce tuition rates, this budget cut is undoubt- edly looming. What taxpayer would blame the state for cutting funds to a university that isn't using its funding appropriately? Admittedly, endingthe corrup- tion within the P-Card program won't prevent a tuition increase in the face of the state's harsh budget cuts. But if the University doesn't take action, it might be getting an even more undesirable bill - this time from Lansing. You won't see conservative politicians and judges pick up a sledgehammer and openly smash women's rights to pieces. Instead, they are using scalpels to cut access to reproductive rights away, one slice at a time. The laws they create and uphold make it increasingly difficult for women to get birth control and pregnancy-related care. But it's not just our lawmakers who are putting hurdles between women and their rights to birth control. A growing number of pharmacists all over the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, based on personal ideologies and without regard for a woman's legal right to receive medication in a timely manner. Many phar- macists wrongly believe that EC is an abortion pill. However, EC consists of two birth control pills that simply prevent pregnancy. I am grateful that we have legislators like Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chris Shays (R-Conn.) and Sen. Frank Laut- enberg (D-N.J.) who introduced the Access to Birth Control Act. The ABC act protects women's access to birth control at phar- macies and guarantees they will receive prescriptions and over- the-counter products in-store, without discrimination or delay. With a federal deficit that is careening out of control, now is also the time for our government to spend money wisely. We know that every dollar spent on family planning saves $4 in social ser- vices from an unintended preg- nancy in the first year alone. Although it makes economic sense to open access to birth con- trol, Congress is making it more expensive for service providers like Planned Parenthood to buy birth control because of a tech- nical flaw in the Deficit Reduc- tion Act. If these organizations can't buy birth control at reduced prices, they can't provide it to patients at affordable prices. We know the only way to pre- vent unintended pregnancies is with access to affordable con- traception and accurate, com- prehensive sexual education. So why has the current admin- istration wasted six years and millions of dollars promoting abstinence-only education, even though a well-documented, fed- erally funded study proves that it is a colossal failure? Now Congress is actually con- sidering spending another $163 million on these dangerous edu- cation programs. Thankfully, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is championing the fight to fund comprehensive sexual education. The result of these barriers to birth control and the inac- curate education programs is not surprising. The Guttm- acher Institute reported that rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion are on the rise among low-income women. And approximately 750,000 U.S. teens become pregnant and four million get a sexually transmit- ted infection each year. Weneedto teardowntheroad- blocks that limit access to contra- ception, and we can only do so by mandating that Congress take action on this issue. On behalf of the 2.5 million women who rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control each year, we are ask- ing our lawmakers to do some- thing about the growing maze of restrictions that women face just to get their birth control. We are urging Congress to do the following, in keeping with our Prevention First campaign: * Increase funding for Title X, America's Family Planning Pro- gram . Expand low-income women's access to birth control through Medicaid " Create equity in prescription birth control coverage . Address the laundry list of barriers to birth control in this country We are asking for reproductive justice for women. We are asking for affordable birth control for those who seek it. We are asking to provide real educationto teens and young adults who want to know the whole truth about fam- ily planning, not just a skewed slice of it. Lori Lamerand is the president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance. 0 0 Editorial Board Members: Mike Eber, Kellyn Jackson, Jennifer Sussex, Kate Truesdell, Radhika Upadhyaya