The Carleton Food Collective’s levy is still in limbo, but the collective has taken a step forward by presenting a budget at their general assembly Jan. 29.
The group runs the Garden Spot, informally known as the G-Spot, a pay-what-you-can food service on campus.
Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) has not released the collective’s levy, usually given to authorized campus clubs and organizations in November.
CUSA vice-president (finance) Folarin Odunayo said he is asking for the financial information to ensure the accountability of the collective.
“We try to operate in a financially accountable manner. That’s something we do ourselves . . . We just request the same thing from the Food Collective,” he said.
The collective’s levy, currently held by CUSA, is $2.18 per undergraduate student per year.
Carleton’s Board of Governors collects all levies paid by students, then releases them to CUSA, who in turn distributes them to the individual groups.
The collective is hopeful its levy will be released now that they have presented their budget, member Wesley Petite said.
Petite, who presented the budget at the meeting, said the issue of financial accountability was fair, but the levy was voted in by students, and is not CUSA’s to withhold.
“It’s not about need. It’s about how much the students voted we should have,” Petite said.
The budget presented at the meeting showed the group has been running on money carried over from previous years. It also showed that a similar levy paid by graduate students has already been partly paid out by the Graduate Students’ Association.
Collective member Madelaine Sommers said the meeting was not called in response to CUSA withholding the levy.
“This meeting has been planned for at least a month, and it’s about a lot of things … I don’t think this meeting was directed towards getting our levy,” she said.
Sommers said she was expecting the levy to be released after the presenting of the budget.
“We wish we got [the levy] a long time ago. We’d like to get it any day,” she said.
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences councillor Ryan Marshall attended the meeting and said he was satisfied with the presented budget. He also asked about roughly $16,000 that was spent in the 2011-12 academic year.
Petite said the money was spent by the members of the collective in the year, and no records exist from then. He said the relationship between the collective and CUSA was more amicable then, and they weren’t required to present a budget.
“It’s unfortunate that there weren’t better records kept, but we’re trying to move forward from that,” Petite said at the meeting.
If CUSA continues to withhold the levy, Petite said the collective will look at pursuing legal action, though they would prefer not to.
“The only person who wins when you employ a lawyer is the lawyer,” Petite said. “I’ve been wanting all year to sort this out between ourselves. If legal action is the only option that we have, after we’ve been so reasonable, then whatever works.”
No CUSA executive was present at the meeting.
