EXPLORING THE UOSU BUDGET, HIGHLIGHTS OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETINGS, EXECUTIVE PORTFOLIOS, AND OTHER UPDATES
Four months into its fourth year as an organization, the University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU) has completed its Spring/Summer semester for the 2023-24 academic year. Let’s take a look at some of the key developments through these months and explore the UOSU budget, an overview of Board Meetings, executive portfolios, and other general updates.
Budget
The full version of the UOSU budget can be found here, and other public financial documents can be found on SharePoint.
Revenue
The Operational Revenues for the organization include the core operations fee, health, wellness, and safety fee, academic support fee, athletics and recreation fee, student life fee, and other revenues. The student life fee generates the most amount of revenue at approximately $2 million.
Expenses
The overall operational expenses for UOSU are from RSG (Recognized Student Government) levies, services, administration, events, and executive costs. Administration for the organization requires the most expenses, taking up 34 per cent of all expenses, followed closely by services at 31.7 per cent.
Diving a bit deeper into operational expenses, the costs of UOSU services are projected at approximately $1.7 million, with the highest expenditures being generated from the Student Rights Centre at $349,922, and the lowest from the Centre for Students with Disabilities at $57,074.
The organization has listed a number of administrative fees within operational expenses as well, with the highest administrative expense being listed for accounting and audit fees as $220,000. Following this is consultancy fees of $105,000 and legal fees of $70,000. Administration payroll (not included in the graph) including wages, EI, CPP, and other benefits came out to approximately $1.2 million.
Next in operational expenses are levies for RSGs. RSG levies make up 19.6 per cent or roughly $1.1 million of UOSU’s total operating expenses, corresponding with the number of students in each association. New developments this year include the Indigenous Students Association receiving approximately $15,000 in levies from UOSU.
Finally, the executive operating expenses budget is roughly $889,020, with $387,460 going towards executive wages and employee benefits (this includes commissioners, deputy commissioners, and Board of Directors employees), and $213,000 going towards club funding.
Businesses
PIVIK’s deficit is projected to run at -$103,620, — a significant improvement from the previous academic year, where it was at -$454,787. UOSU has also budgeted for the acquisition of the Juice Bar, which is projected to run at -$36,454 through the current academic year.
External Organization Levies
With external organizations, UOSU collects and transfers student levies for certain external organizations. These are “flow-through” funds that come in and come out, and the Union does not make any money off of or lose any of the funds in question. The highest external organization levy is Central Services to the U of O, consisting of 23.9 per cent. After this, the CHUO portion is the second largest, at 13 per cent. The smallest portion of external organization levies is with Compass, which only amounts to 2.3%.
Health and Dental Plan
Next, the Health and Dental Plan, which operates on a similar basis as the external organizations levies as “flow-through” funds, and UOSU does not gain or lose money with these funds. Approximately $7.5 million is projected for students’ health and dental insurance and $1.1 million is projected for the virtual health service.
Board of Directors Meetings
Here are the highlights of motions presented at Board of Directors meetings over the past semester. A more in-depth view of all motions presented and discussion can be found in The Fulcrum’s summaries and on the UOSU website.
Motion D) Debate on the Black History Month Gala/Wes Hall Controversy – Fiona Broughton
- A motion to pay two travel invoices for a speaker at the 2023 Black History Month Gala — passed
Motion F) Independent Ombudsperson Hiring – Max Christie
- A motion regarding the importance of and hiring of an independent Ombudsperson — passed
Motion J) Constitutional Suspension – Gabrielle Muzychka
- A motion that calls for the suspension of article 5.10.1.3 of the UOSU constitution, which reads, “Executives who are international students must not earn credits in the spring-summer term and can take 12 credits in the fall term, and 12 credits in the winter term.” — passed
Motion L) PIVIK & Food Bank Purchasing Approval – Fiona Broughton
- A motion that seeks an exemption for the restocking orders of PIVIK and the Food Bank from being approved by the executive committee, but rather the Director of Services — passed
Motion M) ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign – Armaan Singh
- A motion for UOSU to publicly declare support for the Ontario Federation of Labour’s (OFL) ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign — passed
Motion D) University Affairs under the Advocacy Commissioner – Daniel Thorpe
- A motion to remove section 5.9.5 of the constitution and amend section 5.3.5 to read “The President shall assist the Advocacy Commissioner, where appropriate, in relations with governments and external organizations.” — passed
Motion E) Publically available committee meeting plans
- A motion to amend article 6.16.3 of the University of Ottawa Students’ Union constitution be to read: “Notice of any meeting of any Committee shall be sent electronically to all members of the Committee and made publicly available no less than forty-eight (48) hours prior to the meeting.” — passed
Motion F) Clerk of the Executive committee – Daniel Thorpe
- A motion to remove section 5.9.4 of the constitution which states that the Advocacy commissioner must be the clerk for all Executive committee meetings — passed
Motion H) Consultation for club reform – Max Christie
- A motion to mandate the Clubs Committee to fully consult with club executives, members, and other stakeholders, and to grant speaking rights to select club executives during meetings. The motion also mandated the Governance Committee to be notified of the Board’s desire to substantially change its policy regarding club relations — passed
Motion J) Hiring of a full-time coordinator for CAS – Fiona Broughton
- A motion that the board recommends the executive to make the club coordinator position in CAS full-time — passed
Motion J) Freedom of Expression – Max Christie
- A motion that the Board of Directors be committed to the fact that directors are able to voice their opinions freely and with respect to their duty of solidarity to UOSU — passed
Motion C) Communications commissioner – Fiona Broughton
- A motion to create the new role of Communication Commissioner on the executive committee — passed
Motion D) Creation of a Full-Time position for External Relations – Maisy Elspeth
- A motion to create a full-time staff position designed to maintain relationships between UOSU and different organizations and groups — passed
Motion F) Creation of a Temporary Ad-Hoc Executive Code of Conduct – Maisy Elspeth
- A motion to create a temporary code of conduct for executive committee members — passed
Last-Minute Motion) Open Letter to the University of Waterloo – Maisy Elspeth
- A motion that UOSU sign onto an open letter to the University of Waterloo that they take greater action in protecting their campus in lieu of the hate attack on a gender studies class in June — passed
Motion B) Operations Commissioner Role – Rayne Daprato
- A motion to fulfill the responsibilities of the now-resigned operations commissioner through the executive committee finding an interim commissioner, as well as delegating the responsibilities of the role to the remaining executive members – passed
Motion F) Elections Code Approval – Brandon Ly
- A motion to update the Union’s elections code – passed
Motion E) Elections Timeline – Brandon Ly
- A motion to formally outline a schedule for the Fall semester by-elections – passed
Motion G) Committee Agenda Submission – Gabrielle Muzychka
- A motion to ensure committee members submit agenda items four days in advance of the committee meeting to each committee’s chair – failed
Motion H) Policy Review – Rayne Daprato
- A motion to adopt GEN-POL-3, GEN-POL-15, and GEN-POL-16 as a replacement for the clubs code – passed
Motion for the Juice Bar – Fiona Broughton
- A motion to approve the financials needed to place a bid on the lease for a Juice Bar, as well as any necessary equipment – passed
Executive Portfolios
The Fulcrum spoke with equity commissioner Joyce Williams, former operations commissioner Fiona Broughton, and advocacy commissioner Maisy Elspeth regarding their portfolios and goals for the year.
Highlights include Williams and her committee successfully working with the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) and The Period Project in order to install a dispenser for menstrual products on the first floor of the FSS building.
Broughton resigned from her position as of August 25th, 2023 after completing and presenting the UOSU budget.
Elspeth and UOSU streamlined the Stop Tuition Hike Rally on June 21st, 2023 against the U of O’s budget cuts and tuition hikes.
The SAC-CAS Logo Design contest presented a new logo for the association created by Mark Kravchenko.
In August, UOSU offered students the opportunity to march alongside UOSU for Ottawa’s Capital Pride Parade.
Other Updates
Up next for the Union will be 101 Week, where the Union, student associations, and the U of O will welcome incoming freshmen from September 1 to 8.
UOSU has also started its fall by-election process, and has opened nominations for the election. Nominations will close on September 22 at 11:59 p.m. The campaign period will run from September 30 to October 13, and the voting period will be October 9-13. The Union will also be piloting the use of in-person election booths for the first time during this election.
