Nearly $3,500 was stolen from the Student Government Association safe sometime between the evening of Sept. 10 and the following morning, the officials said. According to SGA president and management senior Bea Forlano, there was no forced entry into the safe or into the room where the safe was kept.

“Both were locked and closed when we came in,” Forlano said. “We didn’t even realize that [the money] was gone.”

So far there are no suspects, but University Police and New Orleans Police Department officials are working together to investigate the matter.

Capt. Roger Pinac of University Police has said that his department does not set any policies for other departments within the university, such as a lockdown procedure. He did not give any information about the pending investigation.

Director of Student Activities Chris Cameron said that the typical protocol for handling SGA money has always been to deposit it daily.

Janel Glynn, accounting senior and SGA director of finance, said that on the day of the theft, she had prepared the cash for the deposit, run the tapes and was ready to drop off the money, but it was after 4:30 p.m., which is when the bursar’s office no longer accepts deposits.

Glynn said she carried the cash to the SGA safe and secured it. She said she also had a coworker double-check to make sure that the safe was locked.

That was the last anyone saw of the money.

The first step in a case like this, Cameron said, is providing information to the police and letting them do their job.

“Just because it looks like the university police aren’t doing their job doesn’t mean they’re not,” he said.

Cameron also said that administrators were reassessing security procedures. He said that locks to the doors of the SGA office and the combination to the safe have been changed.

“SGA will be strictly enforcing cash procedures,” he said.

Forlano said that before the theft, the combination to the safe was kept hidden somewhere in the office.

“It’s really possible that anyone could have known there was money in the safe because, there were flyers everywhere that read ‘cash for books,'” Forlano said. “It’s not necessarily someone in this office, because other people have access to this office. Other people have access to keys.”

Among the people who may have access to the SGA office besides the SGA officers, Cameron said, are employees at Physical Plant, the staff in the Student Activities Center, university police and the janitorial staff.

Forlano said NOPD officials interviewed SGA members, and there’s talk of administering a lie detector test.

She said many SGA members think it would be a good idea.

“That made me think it wasn’t anyone in the office,” Forlano said.

The only people who had the combination to the safe, according to Forlano, were herself, the vice president, the chief of staff and the director of finance.

Cameron said the lie detector test is just part of police procedure.

“Because of the amount of money stolen, it’s a felony,” he said.

Officials say that, considering how many people had access to the SGA office at any given moment, the list of suspects needs to be refined a bit before a lie detector test will be administered.

Fortunately, university students will not be put out despite this great loss of money.

“The students will all get their money,” Forlano said. “It’s just that we’re [SGA] not going to make any money on the book sale. We’re going to take a loss.”

Because SGA had a rollover from last year’s account, it will be able to compensate for the money owed to students.

As for SGA’s security measures, Cameron said, “SGA as a whole is rethinking having that safe. Is it still a good idea? Or do we just want to add a security camera?”

He said that the only time SGA ever keeps such large amounts of cash is during the book sale.

The theft has also changed the way SGA members said they feel in their own den.

“It’s made us all a bit more cautious about things,” Forlano said.

She said that she and others in SGA never used to lock their doors, but now they do.

“Everyone was initially shocked, because we spend a lot of time studying in the office,” Forlano said. “There’ve been times when we’ve been here until 2 or 3 a.m. I think it really freaked everyone out.”

She also said that SGA now is keeping money in the safe in the Student Activities Center.

“It’s just one of those things that I really feel like it’s not anyone’s fault,” Forlano said, “and it’s one of those things that I doubt we’ll ever know who did it.”