By Lucy Scholey, News Editor
The student union isn’t as badly in the red.
After last year’s VP (finance and operations) predicted this year’s whopping $68,824 deficit, the Dalhousie Student Union budget came out on top with $31,985 in net revenue.
“There is an average-sized deficit of $20,000 to $30,000 a year,” current VP (finance and operations) Doyle Bond says.
But Bond predicts the recession and the uncertainty underlying the Pepsi contract as a few reasons for the unusually low prediction.
“We didn’t know how much and from whom any revenues from (the Pepsi contract) would be coming from,” says Bond.
Pepsi cut its funding to the DSU in the 2008-2009 year because the union wasn’t meeting its target sales. Though the union had enough funds to pull through, this loss was still significant – the contract, at the time, was the largest in the DSU. The union has since renegotiated its contract with Pepsi – with a smaller target volume and shorter contract – and is receiving funds from the company this year.
Despite this, the DSU’s sponsorship profits increased. Bond partly attributes the increase to orientation week events.
“Most years, (orientation week revenue is) always better than what we predict,” he said in an earlier interview. “However, you can’t bank on that.” So, like with other departments, the DSU projected a lower budget line, to be safe.
But nearly every department on the budget saw an increase. At least a higher prediction than what the DSU thought.
The Halifax Student Alliance (HSA) is an exception. The multi-school coalition saw a $13,046 decrease. That’s because last year, members dropped out for reasons such as lack of interest or funding shortfalls, says DSU president Shannon Zimmerman.
The organization lobbied the municipal government on issues such as late-night transit and student safety. Last year, the DSU put a freeze on Health Savings Account (HSA) funds until the organization has enough support to get back on its feet again.
“It wouldn’t have gotten any other financial resources other than from Dal and we didn’t feel that that was appropriate” says Zimmerman. “It’s supposed to be a coalition of metro universities and colleges. It should have all of them committed to it, rather than just one financially committed.”
The DSU is working on restarting the coalition, but progress has been slow, Zimmerman adds. It may take another few years, she says.
The only other revenue decreases were to the full-time and executive departments. Bond attributes that to “small, trivial things” such as unattended conferences or cut backs on office supplies. Though Bond says the cuts weren’t intentional.
There was also a shift in full-time positions. After three people left the policy analyst, administration assistant and communications departments, the three positions were slimmed down to two – a society co-ordinator and a policy/PR position.
Without much debate, the DSU presented and passed the budget at the last council meeting Dec. 2.
Bond says the new budget should be in line with the needs of all departments.
“I’m confident that what we’ve done with the budget this year and what we’re predicting as a surplus will be really close,” he says. “I’ve talked closely with all the department heads and they all predict all their different expenses and revenues coming in. They’re predicting to be on par to what I said and predicted to council.”
Students can access the budget on the DSU website.
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