The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is reforming their clubs and societies funding model after last year’s executive overspent by $50,000, according to CUSA president Fahd Alhattab.
Clubs and societies requested about $300,000 in funding this year, but Alhattab said CUSA is only able to give out $120,000 according to the budget lines.
According to Alhattab, the total expenses of the clubs and societies office was budgeted at about $179,000 this year. Last year it was budgeted at $188,000, increasing due to student enrolment. However, the clubs and societies office spent approximately $237,000, meaning they overspent by about $50,000.
This year, $120,000 has been allocated specifically to grant clubs and societies, with the rest of the $188,000 going toward staff wages and other costs.
“By me holding out to the $120,000 number, everyone is going to feel that we’ve cut clubs and societies funding, but we haven’t,” Alhattab said. “It’s the exact same number but we haven’t overspent, which is what they did last year. It feels to everyone that we’ve cut the funding.”
“There are simply more groups that are applying for funding, and we’re not overspending,” he said.
Alhattab did not disclose whether the overspending caused the last CUSA executive to run a deficit, but said to wait until the audit comes out.
The new funding model takes into account four aspects of the club which might allow it to get more funding, as determined by the clubs and societies bylaws: membership, the historical credibility of the society or club, membership fees, and other sources of revenue, as well as submitting a budget and an application for the club or society.
“What we try to do is make sure that every group that applies gets some sort of funding, no one walks away with absolutely nothing,” Alhattab said. He also added student engagement is important.
“There is no exact way of measuring [engagement] right now, as of today, past executives have not put in a system in place where you could measure engagement for clubs and societies,” he said.
With less funding available to students this year, executive members of clubs and societies said they are feeling the strain. Nick Petsikas, president of the Carleton Climbing Club, said he is frustrated by the lack of funding available.
“Our club received about $450 from CUSA last year, which is a very far cry from the $2,200 we were told we’d be eligible for—something that I’m led to believe was attributed to a very rigid funding system and to us being a new club,” he said in an email. He added the funding is used to purchase climbing equipment and support members.
“We still don’t know how much funding we’ll receive this year,” he said.
Petsikas said with the amount of funding they received from CUSA last year, they have started to consider other revenue sources.
“We’ve had to explore other funding options outside of CUSA, such as increasing our members’ fees,” he said. “[It] is unfortunate, since the vast majority of our members are students at Carleton who are already subjected to CUSA’s fees through their tuition.”
Alhattab said funding could have increased this year, but the clubs and societies referendum did not pass in the spring of 2015. Currently, Carleton undergraduate students pay $3.40 per year toward clubs and societies.
—With files from Ahren Baumgardner
