Member associations benefit from $10,000 increase in budget allocation

Member associations are receiving more funding this year, according to budgets presented at a special council meeting held by the Arts and Science Federation of Associations last Thursday.

A total of $129,484.81 was distributed to MAs this year compared to $119,300.00 last year, plus $7,800 which was put into one consolidated fund to pay for their elections as per a motion passed last year. MAs were previously given $300 separately to cover costs for their elections, but the amount of money actually spent varied from association to association, resulting in multiple pockets of unused leftover funds. With the new centralized election fund, any leftover money will be put directly into ASFA’s special projects fund.

After subtracting awards and honorariums, ASFA’s total budget for the year is close to $320, 000, compared to last year’s total of $298,250. Of that amount, 20 per cent of this money will go towards next year’s orientation and another 20 per cent will cover costs for ASFA’s operations.

Last year’s ASFA expenditures came in well under budget with a rollover of $7,712 into this year’s budget.

Following a meeting discussing allegations of electoral violations in the last byelection, ASFA council voted to pass their 2011-12 budget, and VP finance Laura Gomez presented the 26 member associations with their individual budgets for the year.

“If you compare it from last year, the budgets [for MAs] are much higher,” said Gomez, who explained that the increase is a result of her taking a different approach than last year’s VP finance, who was also faced with the problem of ASFA’s fee levy coming in late.

“Last year they estimated their budget […] and then whatever surplus came after they put into [ASFA’s] special projects fund,” said Gomez, which is the proper way to deal with remaining funds according to ASFA’s Annex B. This meant that when MAs wanted to access more funds, they needed to apply for them via the special projects fund, a request that took time to process.

ASFA’s fee levy amounts to $1.22 per credit and varies each year depending on the number of arts and science classes students take. This year, Gomez says that ASFA asked council to extend their deadline and waited until finally receiving their fee levy funds before building their budgets for the upcoming year.

“We took a little bit longer but we really tried to make sure that all the MAs got what was supposed to be allocated to them at the beginning of the year,” she said.