With the 2015-16 academic year wrapping up, The Charlatan reviews the Rideau River Residence Association’s (RRRA) budget from this year, highlighting increases in programming budget and cuts in Abstentions revenue.
The RRRA programming expenses have nearly tripled since 2013-2014. That was among the significant information found within RRRA’s approved budget from Nov. 2015.
Although a residence formal was not held this year, $30,200 was budgeted for a “Res Formal or Large Programming Event.”
“We never actually budgeted any money for residence formals this year,” RRRA president Graham Pedregosa said. “We actually used that money to do a concert in January, which was Frost 2016.”
“The budget line does say res formal but usually what that budget might mean is for large events such as formals or concerts or things like that,” he said.
In place of the residence formal, RRRA organized “FROST 2016 – Feat. iLoveMakonnen & DJ Mustard.”
In the budget, the residence formal was projected to generate a revenue of $6,000. Pedregosa said FROST did generate this revenue in place of the formal, but did not provide specific numbers.
Pedregosa later added via email: “Housing and Residence Life agreed with RRRA in August 2015 that they would be doing a formal for residence students and it would be confusing to have two residence formals.”
“What happened at the end was we did our concert in January, while Residence Life announced at the beginning of February 2016 they would be doing a glow in the dark party on 2nd Floor Residence Commons as a residence formal,” he wrote.
However, Laura Storey, the director of housing and residence life services, said this was not the case.
“Housing and Residence Life Services did not agree to host RRRA’s formal,” she said via email. “This is a separate event and separate organization.”
Pedregosa also said the glow in the dark dance organized by the Housing and Residence Life was in place of the annual residence formal.
“This year, the glow formal was paid for out of residence fees as far as I understand,” Storey wrote. “It was not a replacement for the formal; it was an event created by us for residence students.”
Pedregosa clarified in a later email that “this was spoken with Teddy Kozela who was the assistant coordinator, on community development and student engagement at the time in residence life.”
“To my knowledge Teddy does not work there anymore and residence life moved into a different direction from committing to a res formal to a glow in the dark dance after we announced and agreed upon by council we were doing a concert instead of a residence formal,” he wrote.
The expenses of programming jumped from an audited $39,948.65 in 2013-14 to a budgeted $110,935.00. Pedregosa attributed this large jump to a lack of spending in past years.
“When it comes to programming in 2013, that Executive had little to no programming events for students except for a residence formal,” he said via email.
“Due to that RRRA experienced a $72 000 surplus, the most a RRRA executive has ever reported,” he wrote. “We also reported a surplus last year with a 1,376.13 surplus.”
“While increasing programming from 8 programs in 2013-14, to 26 in 2014-15 to 46 in 2015-2016,” he wrote.
Pedregosa cited the increase in programming as “the best way to reach out and impact residence students.”
Other relevant information include the budget projection a fall in Abstentions revenues from an audited $974,159.63 in 2014-2015 to a budgeted $863,250.00 this year.
The smaller projected revenue was attributed to the removal of cigarettes from sale, although an increased levy to the RRRA in 2015 balanced with the losses.
The Resin had $500.00 in budgeted expense this year for “volunteer appreciation,” but Pedregosa said none of that money was spent.
“Unfortunately the Resin was not active this year and that money wasn’t spent due to lack of interest,” he said in an email.
According to the budget, RRRA does not sell two-ply toilet paper for profit. Both the revenue and expenses were expected to be $2,000.
“This is a service to students more than a profit mechanism for RRRA,” Pedregosa wrote.
A new expense for RRRA this year is $5,000.00 being spent on “Move Out Services.”
“This helps in providing boxes and carts for students when they move out,” Pedregosa said.
