The McMaster Students Union has released audits of its financial statements, showing the state of the union’s money from the past academic year.
The MSU, a multi-million dollar organization, is responsible for maintaining a number of services and organizations across campus, which is done through the accumulation of student fees from each full-time undergrad. It collects additional funds through its businesses, including Union Market and the Underground.
“KPMG combed through all the financials of the past twelve months,” explained MSU VP (Finance) Jeff Doucet of the process. The external auditing firm was called in, as part of standard procedure, to assess the organization’s financial health.
The audits were publicly released at the end of October and were put up for discussion at a meeting of the Student Representative Assembly on Nov. 3. Representatives took the opportunity to pick through the details of the reports, asking questions of the VP Finance before ultimately voting to approve the documents.
The MSU finished the 2012-13 academic year with a surplus of more than $300,000. While this represents only about three per cent of the MSU’s operating budget of $12,235,578, as a registered not-for-profit organization it is meant to be completely revenue neutral.
Doucet acknowledged the need for a plan for the extra money, as recommended by the external auditors.
“We need an actual capital growth plan. That’s a plan we don’t necessarily have right now,” he said.
While the organization as a whole ran a surplus for the year, certain services within the MSU saw a deficit in 2012-13, among them the Emergency First Response Team, the McMaster dental plan, and Compass Information Service.
Compass, for example, saw a drop in revenue of about $600,000 and ran an overall deficit of $30,486.
“GO Transit has moved to Presto cards, which is very convenient for students, but obviously it’s resulted in less revenue for Compass—when we sell tickets at Compass we’re earning a percentage of revenue,” explained Doucet.
On the other hand, McMaster’s campus radio station, CFMU, finished the year with a surplus of $193,785, a significant portion of the organization’s revenue, most of which comes from a portion of student fees. However, McMaster students voted in January 2013 to decrease the levy given to CFMU from $17.45 per student to $12.50, which is buy viagra soft tabs expected to eliminate the large surplus in future.
The results of the audit are publicly available, accessible on the MSU website.
Karen Piper
The Silhouette
There is no rule of thumb for managing finances because each individual’s financial position is unique. Here are 10 easy steps to find your way to successful saving, and I hope you find a few of these helpful.
1) MAKE A PRACTICAL BUDGET: To start, a good idea would be to go around and investigate the prices of the items that you will be spending that money on. For example, check the prices of your textbooks so your allocation for books may be somewhat realistic. This may result in a slight modification in your spending limit, but it’s better to know in advance!
2) HAVE A TOTAL FIGURE: This simply means setting a figure on which you agree will be your spending limit for the year or for one term. I personally prefer making a total budget for one term, because life is unpredictable and a lot can change in a year. Chances are if you write down a total or spending limit, you’ll try to stick to it. It’s almost like a written agreement.
3) MAKING A LIST HELPS: I know this is probably something associated with old people and grocery stores, but hey, who cares? Let’s have a reality check: making a list actually works when you go out to purchase those items on your budget, because it keeps you on track. Whether it be a drugstore shopping-list or a bookstore items list, following that paper saves you paper! Chances are that you won’t pick up unnecessary items, make it trendy if you have to, put it down on your tablet or phone- just write the list!
4) KEEP TRACK: Now that you are well into the semester and have already purchased books, room supplies, gym membership etc, it is not a bad idea to keep tabs on what you have online order viagra spent in order to determine if you are sticking to your budget. Let’s be realistic, there is so much to do during the semester (studying, socializing, laundry, meetings, the list goes on) you cannot possibly worry about money issues every single day. Hence, set up a system whereby every week or two weeks, you re-track your spending, whether it is through online banking, purchase receipts or check copies.
5) AVOID DISTRACTIONS: This is really hard to do! Life is very unpredictable and no one lives in a vacuum. It could be Friday night, after a hard long week and a friend asks to go to a club or a bar. You may already be over on your spending, because let’s face it, we’re not perfect. What do you do? I try to remind myself of my long-term goal and sometimes I may suggest doing something that involves spending less. For instance, downloading an exciting new movie at home and just getting some popcorn. Having fun doesn’t need to cost a lot.
6) EMPLOYMENT: It does not hurt to get some extra cash! Some of you may have taken some hefty loans to finance your education, while some of you may have received a sponsor. Whatever your situation, it might not be such a bad idea to source a job to help with your expenses, providing that it does not interfere with your studies. There are many work opportunities available on and around campus. Check out OscarPlus or the MSU website for more info.
7) WATCH WASTAGE: A key reason why we always have to be spending money on seemingly important items is because we waste! We are all guilty of it. We buy food and can’t eat all, and we simply throw away the rest. We are quite wasteful because we have a psychological premonition that we will always have the means to find the next dollar. How wasteful are you, and how can you put an end to it?
8) BUY QUALITY: This is a tricky one. One aspect of life in Canada is the dreaded winter. Speaking from experience, I have been one to buy the cheapest winter coats, jackets and boots in an effort to stick to a budget, but all to no avail. Within a couple of weeks, the zippers would wreck on boots, buttons pop off on jackets and it can be a monetary nightmare. There are certain items you just can’t skimp on financially. Determining what to generously spend on and what not to is a fundamental key to financial success.
9) ACCOUNT FOR SURPRISES: You will notice that I keep reiterating the fact that life is unpredictable. As a result, one has to also plan financially for surprises and unplanned events. Some of these include a medical emergency, replacing a valuable lost item or the sudden inflation in the price of an item you regularly purchase. Try to always account for unexpected events. Put aside money in case of emergency.
10) SEEK HELP WHEN NEEDED: Ok so you’ve probably followed all of these tips as best as you can and you are still having financial difficulty, well that’s life. Nothing is easy and no handbook or set of rules can solve all problems. Don’t be afraid to get financial assistance as soon as you detect a problem. You can get help from a financial advisor at your local bank, a parent or a friend. Maybe you may even want to attend a financial management workshop to get more useful information. Look out for these workshops on campus throughout the year. Remain proactive!
Watch the live-feed from the SRA meeting on Sept. 29. The bulk of bylaw 5 discussion begins at 40:35. For the full video feed, click here.
After a tumultuous week in the world of student politics, the question of ancillary student fees has been put on hold.
The proposed amendments to a McMaster Students Union bylaw which would see five student groups go to triennial review by referendum did not pass at the meeting of the Student Representative Assembly on Sept. 29.
The amendments, proposed by the Finance Committee under the leadership of Commissioner Daniel D’Angela and with the support of VP Finance Jeff Doucet, sought to bring greater financial transparency and accountability to the set of non-MSU, non-university administered groups.
Each of the affected groups was given an opportunity to voice their concerns at the meeting.
“We think there are better, more effective ways to bring conversations with students, and to create more meaningful conversations,” said Kathryn Chan, co-president of Engineers Without Borders, to those present. She explained that her organization was interested in transparency, though not through what they considered time-consuming referendums.
“We think that [the referendums] come at a cost of decreased quality in the work that we do,” Chan said.
Miranda Clayton, president of the McMaster Marching Band, echoed Chan’s sentiment.
“While the changes have good intentions, they ultimately harm the groups involved,” she said.
The McMaster Marching Band was granted a student levy to the amount of $0.90 per student for the 2013-2014 academic year after winning a referendum in January 2013.
Although each of the five groups opposed proposed bylaw framework, the discussion highlighted that issues with the amendments were rooted in the drafting process.
While the groups felt a referendum was taxing, Doucet and the Finance Committee believed such a model was best for maintaining group autonomy.
“All these groups are very different, so…it’s hard to come up with a solution,” he explained. “But one thing they all had in common was going to referendum to get student money.”
Lexi Sproule, co-president of EWB, felt that the perceived lack of consultation was a miscommunication between groups.
“It’s a pretty classic misunderstanding between people making strategy decisions and people on the ground.”
After nearly two hours of discussion, the decision was made to send the proposal back to the finance committee for a more thorough consultation process.
D’Angela explained that the Finance Committee has now asked for policy suggestions from each group on “how to improve students democratic input into the fee” and a period of consultation is expected to follow.
Kacper Niburski
Assistant News Editor
There is no question about it: over the years, the MSU finances have often been in a state of bedlam.
With a tendency of incurring a greater expenditure than revenues could match, the MSU saw a deficit of $925,799 in 2009/2010, followed by a deficit of $149,078 in 2010/2011.
While it is true that such numbers may paint a grim picture, there is a hint of optimism.
As the academic year began with a new Board of Government led by MSU President Matt Dillion-Leitch, new policies were promised. Of those, fiscal management took priority and it was thought that financial benefits may accrue from a general restructuring.
“The deficits demanded action which would steer us back on course and see positive results,” said MSU VP (Finance) Duncan Thompson.
The financial woes were addressed in a variety of ways. The first of change was switching the reviewer of financial statements from Deloitte to KPMG LLP, which is a standard practice for external audits.
Through a thorough analysis of the MSU’s accounting practices, KPMG LLG, who assessed the statements of operations and examined changes in net assets and cash flow, did not report on significant internal control deficiencies.
Such a positive trend can be attributed to the expectations set by the Board of Directors on the MSU.
After the near-$1-million debt in 2010, most of which resulted from the rising cost of administering the dental and health plans without adjusting the student fee to match the increase in claimants, the governing body outlined that it must lower expenses by five per cent, even if sales would not increase.
With such an expectation, the deficit was largely cut. It was projected that a deficit of $402,309 for the 2010/2011 year would be observed, however, a deficit of only $149,078 was reported.
Positive trends such as above are further evident if one looks into the inner workings of the MSU.
“We saw a concerted effort from all business last year to improve their customer service and satisfaction. This led to an increase in volume of costumers,” said Thompson.
“TwelvEighty, under new management, made an effort to improve food quality. Union Market worked extremely hard to get competing suppliers to offer us the best prices. Underground Media + Design managed to pick up some of the largest courses on campus for their courseware project, such as first year Engineering and Pyschology,” he added.
Thompson noted that despite the optimism, work needs to be done. One such area is regarding the MSU’s investment policy.
As it stands currently, there exists no mechanism within the MSU to direct investment policies.
Consequently, there is little to no direction regarding both how an investment is done and the willingness of an organization to contribute to the MSU’s portfolio.
“Our current investment portfolio is very low risk meaning very low yield, mostly in the bond market.”
In KPMG’s audit report, a suggestion was offered. It was observed that by drafting an investment policy regarding the MSU’s level of market risk, the MSU would be able to use funds more efficiently.
As to projections for this year, Thompson hesitated.
“The budget released earlier this year predicts that if all our businesses and services manage to keep exactly as we have predicated, we expect a surplus of $120,163 at the end of the year.”
“However, since the majority of all our business happens during the academic year, it’s still too early to tell exactly,” he added.
Even if it is “too early to tell”, the positive trends suggest that with the appropriate management, the MSU will no long worry over deficit. Instead, the challenge may be of a different nature: mo’ money, mo’ problems.
