July, 2018
Tyler Yan ( Fincom@ams.ubc.ca )
Jonathan Tomalty ( avpfinance@ams.ubc.ca )
Kuol Akuechbeny ( vpfinance@ams.ubc.ca )
Alma Mater Society, UBC
To AMS Finance,
Preface to issues:
We would like to begin by making it clear that we do not have any issue with the core reasoning provided by the AMS for the existence of these quarterly reports. Transparency is important, and students should absolutely be able to see where and how their student fees are spent. Our concerns over the apparent new policy adopted by the AMS Financial team are about the nature of this specific policy and the way its implementation has been attempted.
RE: AMS Quarterly Report
We are writing in response to the meeting held on July 18, 2018 to describe the issues with the enforcement of quarterly reports by the AMS. We believe that it is our responsibility to inform you, as the administrators of finance within the AMS, of our concerns:
Perhaps the most obvious issue with this apparent new initiative by the AMS Financial team is its misleading language and threatening tone. The presentation provided to clubs claims “Failure to submit a quarterly report will reflect poorly on that individual group and on the utilization of their collected student fees. This will play a significant role in future decision making surrounding student fee allocations.” (Slide 5). During a verbal presentation, Tyler Yan specifically referred to these reports as mandatory. However, as far as we are aware, the AMS has absolutely no jurisdiction over how money is allotted to, for example, the Resource Group Allocation Committee, or how the committee distributes funds to the resource groups. These groups are funded directly by student fees that have been determined through past referendums; the AMS has no power to alter these fees nor control their disbursement or use other than proposing a referendum of their own. When informed of this, members of the AMS financial team clearly indicated they understood this and were not trying to claim that they had any ability to affect this funding. Given this, in what way are these reports mandatory? In what way could “failure to submit a quarterly report … play a significant role in future decision making surrounding student fee allocations”?
The presentation of this topic to the clubs and resource groups very strongly suggests that these reports are mandatory, and that they are tied to continued funding, yet the AMS Financial team clearly understands that the AMS has no authority to withhold funding or otherwise interfere with the actions or spending of all these student-fee-funded groups. Why, then, did they make these claims in the first place? Even if unintended, their tone is obviously threatening. Does the AMS, for example, intend to name and shame groups refusing to comply with these new “transparency” rules? Since there is no actual mechanism in place for denying these groups their funding, this obviously unacceptable possibility seems the only method of ensuring compliance. If this is not done, filing these reports must then be entirely voluntary, so why should clubs or resource groups choose to file these reports when the AMS Financial team, whether intentionally or unintentionally, flagrantly misrepresented the nature of these reports and did not correct themselves until directly challenged? Were clubs who attended meetings where this wasn’t pointed out by a non-Financial team member informed of this?
We are also concerned about the extra labor this would place on the volunteer treasurers of the resource groups and clubs, and about how necessary and effective this particular style of report would be. The example template provided by the AMS is incredibly vague, and combined with the verbal presentation, gives the impression that what is most important is fitting every single dollar into some category, rather than actually explaining spending. If the concern is transparency and accountability, nothing in the template actually guarantees that. Any questionable spending could easily be hidden within another category, and the categories are broad enough that a student who disagreed with a particular use of money may well not be able to see it in the summary. For example, if I were a student who was concerned that the AMS was spending too much money on food or alcohol for their events, how would I be able to determine that from the sample report provided? Both the issue of extra labor, and general lack of any real transparency in these reports could be solved in the same way.
In order for any clubs or resource groups to spend money, it must be submitted in detail to the AMS and approved by the AMS. This means the AMS must have a fairly detailed list of every expense of every single club or resource group at UBC. It stands to reason, then, that the AMS Financial team would be in a much better position to create reports that reflect the actual specific spending habits of AMS affiliated groups than the individual treasurers might. They have access to much more information over a broader time period, as well as the software and infrastructure to really leverage it. In addition, members of the AMS Financial team are paid to do their work. Their duties are part of their job. In contrast, club treasurers are volunteers that are frequently in their positions for only a year at a time, have no access to software or professional knowledge of accounting, and must already submit the aforementioned paperwork to the AMS. The AMS has no authority to make these student groups file these reports (as far as we are aware this new initiative has not even passed AMS council as a resolution, for example), so it seems more appropriate that this task be undertaken by the paid employees of the AMS Financial team rather than being offloaded onto the unpaid volunteers serving as the treasurers of the clubs and resource groups.
We also have several concerns regarding the way in which this policy was apparently adopted, and how affiliated groups were informed. Despite transparency being one of the stated reasons for adoption of this policy, there has been little transparency in its propagation. It has been created and decided on entirely by the AMS Financial team, and then sent to the clubs and resource groups as effectively a done deal, with little more than a weeks notice before consultation meetings. At the one “consultation” (using the most generous possible interpretation of that word) meeting, the precise nature of some aspects of these reports was to be discussed, but nowhere was there any consultation on whether the AMS should or could implement this policy. Indeed, considering that the AMS hasn’t actually implemented this policy in any way, it is bizarre that the “consultation” process operated entirely under the assumption that this is how things would be done moving forward.
Under a system that seeks to be transparent and accountable, the first consultation meeting would seek to discuss whether these reports were necessary and what their general form or style would be if they were adopted. As they were, the “consultation” began with the AMS Financial team simply asserting exactly what they wanted, while allowing for some discussion of only minor, mostly procedural or mechanical details. The AMS Financial team does not and should not have the authority to unilaterally assert anything of this nature on its own.
In light of these issues we request the quarterly reports be repealed and reimagined. In creating the reimagined quarterly reports we request the AMS work collectively with the students groups that are to be affected by these reports, and then implement it only after a collective agreement and vote amongst these student groups, the AMS, and potentially the student body.
We have no issue with students understanding how their fees are spent, and we welcome greater student understanding of our work. What we do not agree with, however, is the abrupt imposition of quarterly reports whose utility is debatable. This is particularly true when it is being imposed by a group that does not have any authority or mandate to do so.
Sincerely,
The Social Justice Centre
Neurodiverse Pathfinders
Color Connected Against Racism
Women’s Centre
Pride Collective
