Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) laid off their first employee as a result of student funding withheld by Carleton’s Board of Governors over financial audit disputes.
The layoff is the latest development in the union’s fight with the board to release student fees.
CUSA has also launched a petition and hired a lawyer to force the board to hand over the money.
The events staff employee was laid off Nov.16 according to CUSA president Alex Sirois, who said there could be further layoffs very soon as well as cuts in funding to programming, clubs and societies.
“CUSA will be doing its best to avoid staff layoffs, but without our sole source of income CUSA will have no choice but to limit its services further,” Sirois said.
The board asked CUSA and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) to present their audited financial statements by Nov. 1 after recommendations from university auditors.
Approximately $3.5 million is still being withheld by the board after the unions refused to do so on the principle of financial autonomy.
On Nov. 10, the unions filed a court application to force the university to hand over the remainder of the approximately $7 million the board collects yearly from students on behalf of the unions.
Race, Ethnicity and Cultural (REC) Hall programming co-ordinator Chantle Beeso said the withheld fees directly impacts her.
“Our centre is not being granted for funding, events, programs and activities that we’ve been working on since the beginning of the year. This makes me feel helpless as co-ordinator and unable to do my job,” she said.
A petition called Free the Fees has been circling campus and CUSA executives have been going around to classrooms encouraging students to sign.
“When we talk to students who don’t know what is happening, they are shocked with administration’s steps based on the fact that there are issues with these unions,” said CUSA vice-president (finance) Meera Chander. “It’s a clear attack on student autonomy.”
So far the petition has acquired thousands of signatures, Chander said.
“I understand they’ve made it clear that they are publicly not happy about asking for the financial audits,” said Jason MacDonald, director of the department of university communications, about the petition.
“It’s disappointing to see them resisting an action of basic financial accountability.”
The GSA has also claimed they have documents and an accredited clause stating the university administration does have the intent of micromanaging the businesses once they have control over the audits.
MacDonald said he is not aware of the documents the GSA is referring to.
“There is no interest in managing the affairs, initiatives or activities of CUSA or GSA,” he said.
The university was also renegotiating its lease agreement with the student unions, but this has been put on hold to deal with the financial audits first, according to MacDonald.