DSU Exec blow through their budgets
I’ve embedded the DSU budget revisions for the year. The following items really piqued my curiosity, as they show significant changes from the budget approved in April. (sorry the embedded file is hard to understand)
- An increase of $2,958.15 for governance and external lobbying (Total $174,479.75)
- An increase of $2,229.16 for the office of the President (Total $44,465.52)
- An increase of $11,678.90 for the office of the VPI (Total $53768.36)
- An increase of – wait for it – $25,519.26 for the office of the VP Student Life (Total $111,160.48)
- Nearly $11,000 of the Sustainability Office’s budget appears to be going unspent this year
- An increase of $10,000 in the operations budget (Total $139,474.47)
- An increase of $12,274.70 for the accounting department (Total $125,990.00)
- A $1,200 improvement in revenue for the handbook. (It made a profit of nearly $400!)
- A drop of nearly $2,000 from the Sexton Campus programming budget.
- Overall, a $12,000 decrease in the surplus.
Remember, these are increase over the budgeted values, rather than a requested increase in the budget. Needless to say, I’m unimpressed and will be looking for answers next week. Comment if you’d like!
[scribd id=44098919 key=key-186bq997xqwxmtmq615n mode=list]
Dalhousie SUB Food Services: Time for a major rethink
On December 1st, the DSU Council will be voting on the future of our food services agreement, and may cede control to the University. What we will be exchanging is an exclusive, but autonomous setup with an exclusive, but University-run setup. The debate over this is reaching a fever-pitch, as it rightly should. Here’s my $0.02.
As a councilor on the DSU Council, I have a say in what we will get. I hope that you take the time to write a bit on here so I can hear what the students really want. At the end of the day, any notion that the University requires full control of the SUB’s food services in order to expand the building is ludicrous. The RFP for Aramark, Sodexho, Chartwells, and anyone else who may want to bid can state clearly the areas that need to be serviced, ie the residence-style cafeteria proposed for the SUB, but not the Grawood or the area currently referred to as “The Market.”
When we overhaul the SUB, why don’t we build it like a mall food court, comprising a number of independently-leasable kiosks complete with a kitchen. We could rent these out on multi-year (three or five) terms, and allow a variety of businesses to set up shop. Maybe Creperie Mobile will rent one of them. Maybe we’ll give one to groups like the Loaded Ladle, the proposed new local, vegan soup kitchen cooperative.
What about the money? The DSU currently pulls in about $300,000 per year from our exclusivity deals with Sodexho and Pepsi. If we were to reconfigure our space like a mall food court, we would simply charge rent to the providers, bringing in a similar amount of revenue. Rent would be based on comparisons with similar markets, as it should be in any business environment.
As Jason Loxton, a UBC graduate currently studying at Dal rightly points out, the most popular options are the Dawgfather and Tim Horton’s, because they’re quicker and cheaper than the Sodexho and Aramark services (the three Tim’s locations on campus are run by Sodexho and Aramark, depending on location). We can compete with the quality and cost of any University food court. The DSU could choose to run all the food kiosks ourselves, setting up a pizzeria, sushi bar, salad bar, whatever, or contract them out individually to interested businesses. We could choose to only rent to businesses that are local & organic, that’s really up to us, so long as it’s publicly known that bids on the kiosks have those requirements.
The plan for the University to swap crap for crap is insulting to students, and will continue to keep choice out of our grasp. We want tasty, healthy, cheap food. This can be provided by corporations, or small local businesses, but so long as we retain the current format & exclusivity arrangements, we will never have that luxury.
I’m in favour of expanding the SUB and reconfiguring the food services area, but not the raw deal the University is proposing. What are your thoughts? How should we vote, and what do you want out of our food services?
(This is also in response to the Dal Gazette’s Streeter Question)
Student Politics: Dalhousie DSU Politics Student Politics
by Ben
leave a comment
Questions for the DSU Executive
These questions will be asked of the Dalhousie Student Union Executive at the next council meeting on November 17, 2010, in regard to the Homecoming concerts which lost the DSU upward of $30,000 due to poor planning and mismanagement. It was revealed on November 10, 2010 that the University bailed out the Union for its loss, which still means that student money was wasted.
- Given that the concerts cost more than $10,000 which is the Executive approval limit, when the projected budget was known, who approved the shows?
- Was the headliner budget exhausted by hosting these shows?
- Will the student union be holding any other major concerts this academic year?
My answers to these questions is as follows:
- Not the DSU Council, which must approve such large an expenditure.
- Yes.
- We have no money, so no.
When the answers are provided, I will post them here. It will be interesting to see what they say.
If you have a question you want the Executive to answer, sound off in the comments.
