Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) will dive into planning for event programming for the upcoming year, despite being unsure how its budget will be affected by the Students’ Choice Initiative (SCI).
The initiative, implemented by the provincial Conservatives, will allow students to opt-out of paying for “non-essential” services like student unions. The process of creating the budget in consultation with the executives and their respective portfolios is ongoing, said Jacob Howell vice-president (finance), at the monthly council meeting on Tuesday.
The budget will be ready to be voted on in time for next month’s CUSA meeting, said Howell.
While the association plans for the year, Howell said the opt-out period – which was decided upon by university administration – will run for the duration of registration, until Sept. 17. He said he expects no more than 20 per cent of students will choose to opt-out of paying fees to their students’ association.
This forecast is based on similar opt-out initiatives run in Australia and New Zealand and feedback from the community on social media, he said.
In the 2018-19 school year, each undergraduate student paid $44.60 in annual fees to CUSA. The association budgeted $1,125,132.65 for total student fees, as seen on its operating budget.
The fees help pay for CUSA service centres, programming, club funding, and executive salaries.
Ensuring that CUSA service centres receive funding amounts similar to previous years is a “main priority,” Howell said in an interview with the Charlatan.
Howell said he has a “tentative idea” of what CUSA’s funding for the coming year will be.
“Based on business revenues, sponsorship acquisition, as well as just general students fees we’ll be getting, we think we’ll be able to be pretty successful in assigning students that same kind of money,” he said.
But cuts will need to be made, even if only 20 per cent of students opt out. Non-fixed costs, such as programming, will be some of the areas that may be cut. But ideally the cuts will be spread around multiple areas of the budget, Howell said.
One area of focus for programming will be mental-health, said Sissi De Flaviis, vice-president (student issues). Some of the programming the association is planning is for students’ mental health.
De Flaviis told the council that she is planning a research fair, therapy dogs, and mental health activities to help “pop the stigma around mental health.”
She said she plans to extend campaigns, such as sexual assault awareness week, to a month long event. This will allow events to be more spaced out, and have more of a focus on social media campaigns, which will help manage any budget constraints.
She will also host a federal debate for Ottawa Centre candidates, and will have a viewing party on the Election Day, De Flaviis added.
While students decide whether to opt-out, Howell said CUSA is working to educate students on the “value of CUSA.”
“We’re informing students of the services,” he said.
