From athletics and recreation fees to organization fees, the university lacks transparency when it comes to where your money is going
Each year, McMaster University and the McMaster Student Union collect over $1,400 in mandatory supplementary fees from each of their full-time undergraduate students. As tuition and supplementary fees were just due on September 25 this year, students, once again, enter a period of heightened financial stress after paying off significant balances to avoid late fees and interest charges.
However, finding detailed information on your student fees isn’t as easy as it should be.
While the MSU provides an accessible breakdown of the specific fees they manage, there is limited information available on how those funds are used by the MSU. For instance, to better understand how the organization fee, which costs students over $150, is used, you’d have to rummage through lengthy financial documents that are largely inaccessible to the average student. Not to mention, the list of fees on the MSU website is inaccurate and outdated based on the fee breakdown students can find on Mosaic or the Office of the Registrar’s website.
In comparison to the MSU’s less-than-satisfactory efforts towards transparency, though, the university lags even further behind. For McMaster-specific fees, there is little to no information available on how student funds are managed.
In comparison to the MSU’s less-than-satisfactory efforts towards transparency, though, the university lags even further behind. For McMaster-specific fees, there is little to no information available on how student funds are managed.
Take, for example, the administrative services fee which can cost up to $43 and is designated for transcripts, letters, tax form and certificate fees. Beyond that brief description in the title of the fee there are no further details on how the funds generated by this fee are used by the administrative team. What makes the unclarity of the fees even more frustrating is the fact that students are still required to pay $3 for an official e-transcript or $30 for an official paper transcript with express shipping.
This administrative service fee is just one example from that never-ending list of fees slipped onto your balance with tuition costs.
For many students and their families, the set of student fees they are required to pay can represent a significant financial burden, especially given the current economic climate.
As students at McMaster, we deserve to know exactly how our money is being spent. Creating a sense of transparency around student fees would not only improve attitudes towards fees, because students can better understand the value of their fees, but it also holds the university accountable to their budgeting, ensuring every student’s hard-earned penny is well spent.
As students and consumers at McMaster, we deserve to know exactly how our money is being spent. Creating a sense of transparency around student fees would not only improve attitudes towards fees, because students can better understand the value of their fees, but it also holds the university accountable to their budgeting, ensuring every student’s hard-earned penny is well spent.
For example, students are charged $260 for an expense labelled as the Athletics & Recreation Sports Complex Building fee. Beyond the title of the fee, there are no further details provided on where these costs are going and how they would benefit students. Without accessible information on these vaguely defined fees, students are left in the dark, unsatisfied with the dozens of unreasonable additional costs their forced to pay.
As inflation continues to take a toll on students, the burden of student fees is undeniable. Both the university and MSU need to prioritize transparency and work to build a more accessible and equitable system of student fees that better supports students and their needs.
By: Eden Wondmeneh
Faculty representatives and Maroons can shape incoming students’ initial impression of the McMaster University community. They guide us through Welcome Week and are meant to play the role of mentor and role model.
A few days into Welcome Week, new students grow accustomed to the vibrant suits and are well-aware of the colour distinctions of each faculty. Suddenly the suit, which at first glance may appear as a horrendous fashion statement, is at the top of many first-year students’ wish lists.
For some students who hope to mentor and inspire incoming students, becoming a faculty representative during Welcome Week is not feasible.
Even if they do make it through the competitive application process, they are unable to participate due to representative fees that candidates are not made aware of at any point during the application process.
On Jan. 22, a call was released on the DeGroote Commerce Society Facebook page for 2019 business faculty representatives. Applications were due by Feb. 1, with prospective green suits contacted for interviews.
The role requires faculty representatives to attend two training sessions prior to summer break and another session the week prior to Welcome Week. Green suits are also highly encouraged to participate in May at Mac and Shine-o-rama, both orientation events running during the summer break.
Despite the large time commitment and the cost of the $60 green suit itself, students who made it through the application process and ultimately became a green suit, were immensely excited about the experience to come.
This excitement, however, was soured with the introduction of a representative fee of over a hundred dollars that was not advertised at any point during the application process.
The representative fee is a confusing, hidden fee that prospective and new faculty representatives are appalled by. The fee is estimated to be around $120.00, but with the McMaster Students Union funding cuts, new representatives expect this to be a low-ball estimate and have yet to be informed of the final cost.
This cost is said to cover training, food and participation in Welcome Week. This contribution to Welcome Week especially annoys students who never signed up to subsidize part of Welcome Week that as first-year students we already paid a mandatory $120.98 First-Year Orientation levy for.
For business students fees to join clubs specific to their faculty is not uncommon. Most clubs require students to pay a small fee for registration.
However, in the case of the representative fee that impacts all faculty reps, the fee is substantial, and no one made them aware of the fee prior to joining. With a lack of discussion of financial support, some students are genuinely happy they didn’t make the cut.
It is simply unfair for students who underwent the incredibly extensive process to become a faculty representative to be cut from the position because of an inability to pay for the high fees.
The faculty representative fee ensures that those who are willing and chosen to volunteer their time to enrich and support incoming students secure their spot by coughing up money.
If this is the inequitable model the green suits and other faculty society representatives decide to rely on, then they should at least be transparent to their applicants.
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By: Brian Zheng
Since I started at McMaster University in 2014, I’ve been involved with the McMaster Students Union, from involvement with a presidential campaign to eventually being elected on the Student Representative Assembly. I quit the SRA six months in.
When I started, I was handed several documents to help me understand the MSU and my role within it. Even after two training sessions and reading multiple documents, I still didn’t have a clear understanding of the possibilities within my role.
This is due to the sheer volume of functions the MSU oversees. The MSU consists of over 30 different business units and services, along with individual committees that address issues affecting the 20,000+ undergraduate students represented by the union.
Along with this, there are 35 student representatives from each faculty that make up the SRA. These students are elected each year, based hopefully on their platform points.
With the diversity of functions that exist within the MSU, keeping track of the hundreds of members involved is more than a full-time job; hence, the existence of four full-time student jobs, the board of directors, dedicated to managing all these portfolios.
So, if a potential SRA candidate wants to grasp this wealth of information, it would require them to sift through an incredibly disorganized website, spend hours reading jargon-riddled meeting minutes and likely set-up meetings with a few SRA members.
It’s no secret that the SRA struggles with transparency. The point is, it is not easy to disseminate information about the MSU, let alone in a format that’s easily digestible by students.
But is this the reason why candidates continuously repeat previous or unfeasible platform points? I don’t think so.
The reason why the average student doesn’t understand the MSU has little to do with the disorganization of the information. Instead, students’ lack of awareness is due to the existence of the elitist culture rampant within the SRA.
During my time involved with the MSU, I’ve noticed several condescending statements released both publicly and privately ridiculing the SRA candidate pool.
For example, a current SRA member, on their public twitter stated, “If I hear extended library hours as a platform point one more time I’m gonna lose it”.
In a separate instance, during last year’s SRA elections, another heavily-involved MSU member wrote as their Facebook status, “Lol, @SRA candidate saying that the MSU should make job descriptions, we are doomed”.
These are only a few public statements made by elected members that dramatically contribute to the MSU bubble that many of the same individuals supposedly ran to help dissolve.
After releasing these statements, SRA members had the audacity to wonder why such a limited number of candidates reached out to consult their platform points.
It is important to note that while these factors alone don’t contribute to the unapproachability of the SRA, the public ridicule of students aspiring to volunteer their time is equivalent to schoolyard bullying and needs to stop.
While it is more than possible to develop comprehensive platform points without the help of current and previous assembly members, it is so much more difficult given the overwhelming disorganization of the available information.
Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to sort through the disorganized mess. The inaccessibility of this information can be easily tested by simply trying to figure out where to find the most recent SRA meeting minutes.
Candidates aren’t reaching out, not because they don’t want to, but because the assembly does not appear to be an approachable group. The MSU does not reflect the welcoming environment that it boasts, and as a result, candidates are more likely to run on limited information. Hence, the epidemic of repeated and unfeasible platform points.
Over the years, I have constantly heard the notion that the lack of student engagement within the MSU is a result of apathy on the student end. Maybe it’s about time the assembly made it worth students’ time.
Halfway through my term, I left my seat on the SRA. This was not because I couldn’t learn about the organization, but because I didn’t feel like being ridiculed for not knowing.
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One of the biggest talking points that most candidates make when running for a seat on the Student Representative Assembly is transparency. The word has been tossed around so much that it has basically become a buzzword. But transparency is more than just a talking point; it’s an incredibly important behaviour that the SRA needs to adopt.
During the SRA meeting on Jan. 20, the SRA discussed how they can make their assembly more survivor-centric. Namely, a motion was passed to task the vice president (Administration), in collaboration with the sexual violence response coordinator Meaghan Ross, to develop an amendment to the constitution which includes an emergency response procedure for sexual violence.
This occurred after an SRA member was accused of engaging in sexual assault and another member supported that member. As of now, the SRA cannot ask these members to step down from their positions, only suggest that they should.
The proposed changes to the constitution could allow the SRA to remove such members from their assembly. This is important news in support of survivors, but unfortunately this information has not been made widely available.
Navigating the SRA website is far from an easy task. While the interface itself is user-friendly, information is difficult to find. For example, one would think that meeting minutes from SRA meetings would be listed under SRA minutes but this webpage only contains broken links from April 2018. The actual minutes from SRA meetings are posted under SRA documents amidst other documents and memos.
The minutes themselves are lengthy and filled with unfamiliar jargon that the average student should not be expected to know. This length and volume leads to the vast majority of students not reading the minutes and remaining unaware of the changes that are occurring within the university.
Beyond the content of the minutes, it is also unclear when the meeting minutes are posted. Two weeks ago, on Jan. 9, I was searching for the Jan. 6 meeting minutes, found nothing, and was forced to watch the hour-long livestream to understand what happened.
Though the Jan. 6 meeting minutes are posted now, they are posted under the Jan. 20 heading. I’m not sure when they were posted considering that nowhere on the SRA site do they state when they post meeting minutes after each meeting. Students should not be expected to consistently check the site or watch hours of livestream footage to stay informed.
Instead, minutes should be posted as soon as they are available. A three-day turnaround seems more than reasonable.
If the meeting minutes take long to post, at the very least the SRA or its individual caucuses should create summary documents for students to review. These documents can forgo the jargon and essentially list the important details that were discussed.
Students interested for more information can then consult the meeting minutes, or better yet, review a transcript of the livestream, which remain available to view after the meetings occur. I understand that it is difficult to transcribe a live meeting however, in the interests of accessibility, SRA meetings should be transcribed afterwards to allow individuals who require accommodations the ability to access the livestream videos.
Moreso, when watching the Jan. 20 livestream, a comment was made that some of the information that was discussed would not be included in the meeting minutes. There must be a reason — not all comments made are deemed important enough to include in the minutes — but if the SRA would like to be considered transparent, these comments should be made available for students to interpret on their own. A transcript of the meetings could provide this transparency.
This is not the first time that the SRA has been called out for its lack of transparency. As a governing body that is meant to represent the entire student body of McMaster University, the SRA has a responsibility to do better. The SRA is making some important, positive changes for the university — if only students were aware.
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By: Tanvi Pathak
Following the University of Ottawa administration’s recent decision to end their agreement with the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, the school is expected to no longer recognize the SFUO as an undergraduate student association by Dec. 24. The decision followed the university’s alleged discovery of fraud and financial mismanagement by SFUO executive members earlier this year.
In light of the situation unfolding at the University of Ottawa, student unions across the province are being asked questions about their financial transparency, accountability and management.
The McMaster Student Union undergoes a yearly financial audit to avoid any risks associated with financial mismanagement from any executive member or employee. The union’s annual audit stretching back to 2015 can be viewed on the MSU website.
Each year, the MSU hires an accounting firm to conduct the audit for the consolidated financial statements. This year, the MSU worked with Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler during the months of June and July to conduct the audit.
KPMG published a fully consolidated report and audit findings regarding the MSU’s financial reporting. The audit findings report highlights various important items in its disclosure. Some of them concern risk of management override of controls, meaning the potential for the MSU to fraudulently misclassify information.
“We did not identify any issues regarding management override of controls,” reads a part of the report. “As a result of the audit work completed, we did not identify any issues related to fraud risk associated with the revenue recognition of the MSU.”
Scott Robinson, the vice president (Finance) for the MSU, reported in his memo post that the report disclosed that “the MSU is in a healthy fiscal state” with a “strong reserve in the operating fund.”
Nevertheless, the 2018 annual audit reports a net loss of $149,900 compared to a gain of $660,403 in the previous year.
“The loss is linked to poor market performance of the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange over the past year, specifically during the months of January to April 2018,” reads part of the report.
The report also notes that a number of cheques written out by the MSU have yet to be accepted by the payee.
“These held cheques amounted to $51,962 for which KPMG has proposed an adjustment for which management has corrected. Upon further inquiry with management, the cheques primarily relate to student organizations and students on campus who have submitted a request to be reimbursed for expenses but have yet to collect the cheques,” reads part of the report.
In addition, a cheque amounted to $70,659 issued to the university last February was held by the MSU. The reasons underlying this were not substantiated in the report.
In previous years, KPMG raised concerns about the MSU’s inventory count procedures for Union Market, TwelvEighty and Compass.
This was brought to the attention of the MSU in 2016 and they have since undertaken the necessary steps to ensure the procedures are appropriate again. KPMG has not noted any more issues regarding inventory count this year.
When asked for specific details, Robinson stated that he could not specify further. Nevertheless, it appears the MSU’s systems of accountability are aligned with KPMG’S quality control objectives.
The MSU Student Representative Assembly is mandated by corporate bylaws to approve the audited statements by Nov. 30 each year.
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[spacer height="20px"]Back in September, a Silhouette contributor signed up to write a story about a piece of information that was stuffed into an old board of governors meeting agenda. While the contributor was working on the story, the agenda curiously vanished from the McMaster website. The agenda has since returned, being scrapped initially as a byproduct of the Brighter World redesign.
However, the university must maintain a higher standard of information transparency and when it restricts public access to meeting materials, even temporarily, be held accountable to properly notify the public.
After the agenda disappeared from the website, the university did not even feign interest in letting students know. No McMaster Daily News announcement was trotted out. In both failing to make meeting agendas available and communicate about their lack of accessibility, the university made an implicit assumption: the removal of meeting materials was an unnoticeable and insignificant byproduct of the website redevelopment. This assumption is misguided.
It may be true that most students do zealously read through board of governors agendas. However, The Silhouette needs these documents. Our job, in large part, is to hold the university accountable, and we cannot do that when we do not know what is on the university’s agenda. Our role is diminished when it takes us a month to receive a single document.
The university also assumed that the scrapping of these agendas was not important enough to warrant a public announcement. This assumption does a disservice to the university, delegitimizing the discussions held in board of governors meetings in the first place.
Moreover, while not an arm of the university, the McMaster Students Union should not escape scrutiny either. The meeting schedule for this year’s Student Representative Assembly has yet to be updated on the MSU website. How can the MSU expect students to attend SRA meetings when this information is not accessible?
Even amid the Brighter World campaign, the university has virtually no excuse for not making its meeting materials publicly available. If doing so would have presented a logistical challenge, the university should have at least publicized its technical limitations and not destroyed any semblance of transparency.
It took me almost a month to access an agenda. How can the university convince students it is fostering a “Brighter World” when it obscures the most illuminating information about its own plans?
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