RE: “CUSA financial audits reveal 2012-2013 deficit,” Nov. 20-26.
In the Nov. 20-26 issue of the Charlatan a piece was published on the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) deficit.
The story is simple.
It’s the story of the deficit the CUSA executive tried to keep hidden from your elected councillors.
It’s the story of an executive that has consistently overspent numerous unrealistic budget targets since the day it was elected.
The questions most people are asking now are, how did this deficit come about? And more importantly, what can be done to get this association back on track?
Deficits aren’t created in a vacuum, there are always causes.
One cause of the deficits in CUSA is the culture of fiscal irresponsibility which has pervaded the executive.
This culture is exemplified by issues such as the approximately $18,000 in special projects funds spent by the executive in 2013-14.
These funds are essentially used by each executive as a slush fund which can be distributed directly from an executive to a club.
They are completely subject to the arbitrary whims of politicians who may possibly looking to find an easy path to re-election for their slate.
While CUSA president Folarin Odunayo said the use of these funds are seen by the Financial Review Committee, this process is not transparent to regular students.
There is also an issue with the fact that we continue to pay our student association executive exorbitant amounts. In fact, in August 2014, they asked for even more, eventually settling on a 2.7 per cent raise instead of the proposed 11 per cent.
It comes down to this, the association is not respecting its budgets.
According to the association’s numbers, in the 2013-14 fiscal year, numerous budget lines were overspent. This means that in each of these cases, set limits of spending were shot over. And that is no way to run an association.
What should we do to get our association back on track?
There’s a simple answer: we have to focus on the waste, and the special interest spending that is killing our association.
We need a plan to get rid of the special projects funds, so all organizations have equitable access to funding from CUSA.
We need to get executive pay under control by standardizing executive pay to the provincial average, thereby allowing us to save thousands of desperately needed dollars.
But most importantly, we need a plan to hold our executives accountable for the budgets set by the association, to prevent the overspending we have seen in the past.
The services that our association provides are in many cases extremely important to the well-being of our student community. From our health insurance, to our U-Pass, to our student-run businesses, to clubs and societies funding.
Students deserve to know, that their money is in good hands with our association.
It’s a matter of rebuilding trust.
It’s a matter of rebuilding trust.
