There comes a time in the life of a blog when the news has dried up. So in lieu of CSSS shenanigans, we present this tidbit from the Mar 31 AMS Council meeting: if the AMS maintains their current spending, they will be going bankrupt “in 1.87 years starting this May”. How could this happen? Here are the take-homes from AMS VP Finance Elin Tayyar’s presentation.
As I wasn’t taking notes at the meeting, some of these numbers might be slightly off. Corrections are welcome.
Business revenues are down.
These are the AMS businesses. This year’s budget projected revenues of $936,000. However, the actual revenue for this year is closer to $700,000, resulting in a deficit of $200,000+. This is in sharp contrast with the 2008–09 fiscal year, where the budgeted revenue was $865,000 while the actual revenue was $1,114,981. The blame for this is being laid at the feet of UBC, who has stopped referring events to AMS Catering and now refers them to UBC Catering instead.
Having volunteered around campus enough to have eaten both AMS- and UBC-catered food, I find AMS lunches less fancy but more delicious.
The budget is inflexible.
The large majority of the budget is non-discretionary: money earmarked for, say, Student Services can’t go anywhere else. No matter how much the AMS can’t afford to put money into some things, they have to keep putting money there. The annual deficit is actually only 2% of the AMS’s $12 mil budget. But as most of that $12 mil is earmarked, the amount of spending the AMS can cut to exorcise the demonic deficit is regrettably small.
Elin the Exorcist
The AMS doesn’t have money to spend.
Although the AMS does have a significant reserve fund, most of that is untouchable due to the SUB’s insurance policy. In short: 25% of the SUB’s value must be kept in the bank at all times. This leaves the AMS with roughly $500,000 in money it can spend.
So, that’s $500,000 of backup funds to spend, and $200,000+ of backup funds being spent each year. No wonder the AMS was headed for swift bankruptcy.
What does this mean?
There will be a lot of budgetary cuts in the coming year. The biggest news-maker is the merger of AMS Safety and Safewalk. Safewalk is the biggest spender of all the capital-s Student Services, and the merger means saving $50,000+ a year. There will also be internal restructuring and cuts within the AMS administration, including salary reductions.
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