Student Union President Ricky Rosen '14 sent an email to the student body on Sept. 8 to announce Treasurer Sunny Aidasani's '14 formal resignation. According to the email, Aidasani resigned due to "personal health problems" that would interfere with his duties as treasurer.

The resignation came just a week after Executive Board members called for an emergency Senate meeting to consider impeaching Aidasani. Executive officers cited a general lack of communication over the summer as the reason for impeachment. However, the impeachment process was halted following a meeting between Aidasani and Rosen, and Aidasani was given a deadline of last Tuesday to complete a list of tasks for the treasury, according to Student Union Vice President Charlotte Franco '15.

In Aidasani's statement of resignation, emailed to the student body by Rosen, Aidasani wrote that he felt these personal health issues were "inhibiting [him] from performing [his] duties to the best of [his] abilities, along with conflicting with [his] personal commitments." He added that he "may need to take time off this year" and wrote "it would only be fair if I resign now so that there is no disorder within [the] Treasury if that happens later."

"The Student Union and the Executive Board is confident that this decision is what is best for the Brandeis student body, and for Sunny himself," Rosen wrote. "The Student Union is grateful to Sunny for making this difficult decision with the interests of students in mind." 

The controversy began over the summer, when, according to Rosen, the Student Union and club leaders had difficulty getting in touch with Aidasani. "Having not heard from him in months his status was very much in the air when the school year began," said Rosen in an interview with the Justice. "Since we had not heard from him in so long we decided that the best course of action for the student body would be to approach the Senate about removing him from office."

According to Rosen, the same day that he and other Executive Board members had decided to schedule a meeting to discuss Aidasani's status as treasurer, Rosen heard from Aidasani. "After speaking with him, I decided that it was in the best interest of students to give Sunny an opportunity to perform all of the duties that he had promised to when he was sworn in as the treasurer over the next few days," Rosen said.

Rosen said that although Aidasani was able to resolve many of the issues that the Finance Board and the treasury were facing, including questions regarding Procurement Cards, clubs' allocations and other duties within the Student Union such as buying supplies for the Union office, he "did not believe that Sunny could continue to maintain this level of commitment to this position for the duration of the year."

"I feel like as Sunny stated in his email, his personal circumstances were preventing him from being able to fully commit to being treasurer ... and being treasurer of the Student Union is the most difficult position on campus," Rosen said.

According to Rosen, Aidasani made the decision to resign despite the fact that he was able to complete most of his duties prior to this past Tuesday. "We certainly made Sunny aware of the fact that given his inactivity over the summer we would be considering asking him to resign if he failed to complete the duties over the few days, but in the end it was Sunny's decision," Rosen said.

Previous Union treasurer and current Chief of Staff David Clements '14 wrote in an email to the Justice that the job of treasurer often made him feel like he was "'on-call' 24/7" and that "any personal issue that would prevent someone from properly performing his or her job is sufficient reason to step down."

According to Clements, in addition to working 10 hours in the office per week, he would receive between 100 and 150 emails per day from club leaders and administrators, "all of which needed to be answered in a timely manner."

Director of Student Activities Stephanie Grimes said in an interview with the Justice that she tried to reach out to Aidasani several times over the course of the summer, but that "there was generally a lack of communication in regards to funding."

According to Grimes, she does not believe the process of checking allocations was made clear to club leaders, especially since the Union began posting allocations to the Student Union Management system instead of my.brandeis.edu this summer.

"We were getting lots of questions from club leaders about their allocations and making sure that people knew what they had going into the school year in regards to their early marathon allocations," she said. "The communication about that in connection with logistics of people not having access to the club leaders' email [listerv] and not using resources in that regard I think enhanced the communication challenge."

Grimes also said she believes that early marathon was slightly delayed. "I think that the biggest challenge that I saw with the early marathon allocations process was the communication to club leaders that their allocations were up," she said.

In his statement, Aidasani wrote that in his absence, "[p]roper measures are being taken to make sure there is a smooth transition into a new treasury." According to Rosen, until a new treasurer can be elected, Mohamed Ali '14, the Finance Board chair, will serve as the interim treasurer.

An election for a new treasurer will be included in the general Senate elections Sept. 18.

Until a new treasurer is elected, Ali will be serving as both the interim treasurer and F-Board chair.

Grimes raised concern about the overlap of these commitments, as start of regular marathon and the end of early marathon will take place around the same time that a new treasurer is elected.

"I think just like any student I would be concerned about his time commitment at the end of September and early October when the F-Board process is in full swing and making sure that he's balancing the F-Board chair role with any remaining treasurer responsibilities," she said.

However, Grimes said that she feels that Ali is capable of balancing the jobs, and Ali wrote that the possible overlap in September should not cause any issues because "by [the time the F-Board has high priority tasks], a new treasurer will be elected and begin training."