Comments on: Liaison quits KSA over social justice spending decision

By: Scott Clark

Scott Clark — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:52:48 +0000

Seems to me that there is a disconnect between the KSA and the students. I have come back here since January 2009, and outside of election time, referendum, and the odd social event, I have no idea what you the KSA is doing. I am sure your busy but I am sure the majority of students have no idea what you do. What is clear is that we all pay fees regularly and therefore there is a significant budget entrusted to the KSA. Perhaps you spend some of that money and hire some of our marketing students to inform us on what you are doing.

Anyways, I speak from a space of ignorance, and am curious as to why issues of social justice are not address by the KSA. The provincial and federal governments are cutting funding to students and KSA is silient on these issues. Not a word from KSA on the Security, Prosperity, and Partnership or the Copenhagen Climate Treaty.

more later, regards Scott

By: Ken McIntyre

Ken McIntyre — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Ah right I forgot about that. The RAF dominated council back in 2005 wanted to get rid of all Liaison positions, however I had tried to persuade them otherwise. As a result a compromise was struck were some Liaisons would be kept and some would be cut, otherwise there would have been no Liaisons during the RAF period at the KSA. Unfortunately they ended up giving me the responsibility to decide on which ones we should keep and which ones should be cut. So I drew up the proposal in an effort to try and save what I could of the Liaison positions at the time. Steve is right all seven positions were restored once RAF left office and that was awesome that they were.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:13:09 +0000

One last thing I should have emphasized in my last few paragraphs > in 2010, right now, there are no plans to lower the amount of money allocated from the base budget to the liaisons and social justice. In fact, if I can, I will increase it. And if it desired, Council could certainly move a motion to internally restrict any unspent social justice surplus from the 2009 fiscal year so that it could only be spent in future years on social justice initiatives.

- Steve, Director of Finance / Chairperson, KSA

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:09:39 +0000

Quote: “…so the KSA held a referendum and raised the $1.8 million dollars needed for the other rooms.” Comment: This is actually not quite true. A referendum to raise the money was never held; although permission to go ahead and secure a demand loan was sought and approved by the membership at the 1996 annual general meeting, with an increase approved at the 1998 annual general meeting (see page 8 here for 1996: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/263.pdf and funnily enough on page 8 here for 1998: http://kusa.ca/files/pdf/134.pdf ).

Just over 1.6 million was borrowed through CIBC and under an agreement that was signed with Kwantlen we gave Kwantlen $1.6 million to build the “social spaces” of G-Building (the Gym, Conference Centre, Fitness Centre, Cafe space and student association office space). In exchange for that money, we got to have the student association offices and we were able to run the cafe and the fitness center (although if you ask me, we should’ve been running all the social space, but I digress).

So we have a loan from CIBC and under the terms of that loan, we pay back $80,000 a year to them. As of December 31, 2008 we had $840,000 left outstanding on the loan. At the end of this year, we will have $760,000 left to pay.

I personally feel it’s a bit of a misnomer for Derek to state that the money moved to the Student Union Building fund will help “…to pay off the mortgage more quickly,” as it is my understanding that the fee being collected should generate about $100,000 – which would help cover the 2010 allotment of $80,000 (which would leave us with $680,000 left to pay off on December 31, 2010), and give us a bit of money to put into savings or use to cover the costs of the consultant we’ve engaged to help us map out a future Student Union Building (SUB) in Surrey, as well as to expand our footprint on the other campuses. But it certainly would not help us to pay off the loan more quickly. And until we get a firm commitment (i.e. a signed & sealed deal) from Kwantlen in regards to the SUB there isn’t really a need to speed up our paying down of the loan.

Now, the $80,000 that the SUB fund will help cover, will allow us to free up $80,000 in our main budget. That, combined with the events fee, will help us free up a total of about $250,000. This year, the KSA actually committed to going into a reserve of money that has built up over time in order to balance our books for this year’s budget – to the tune of about $300,000. There are some areas in the budget as well that won’t have to be as high as they have been recently, so we should be able to have a budget for the 2010 fiscal year that does not have us having to rely on our reserves to balance.

It will still be tight but no area should see cut backs.

Ultimately, we’re working hard to do a lot for students. And the liaisons and social justice is no different. The positions have existed since 2001. In 2005, under “RAF” they actually cut a few liaison positions (under a proposal brought forward by Ken if I remember correctly). But when “RAF’ was booted out, the KSA restored all seven positions. It is true that funding for the positions has been tight in the past – in 2002 the funding available for each position was $2000. But it is also true that over the years funding was cut until in 2008 funding for each position was only $450 – which you can’t do much with. But this year, we were able to restore funding to the 2002 levels. But to date, nothing has been spent by any of the five liaisons… although we do have two new liaisons who have some plans, in addition to the other three active liaisons.

In time, the full amount of the social justice fee will be in place.

The only downside to not having it in place now is that at the end of 2010, any money left over and unspent by liaisons will just go into the general reserves. Whereas, if the fee was in place in 2010 any money left over would have to stay ear-marked for social justice.
I hope the above information made sense. I tend to babble a bit…

- Steve Lee, Director of Finance / Chairperson, KSA