Friday, October 25, 1996
ASUCLA:
Organization focuses on fiscal responsibility, keeping student
activity funds secureBy Frances Lee
Daily Bruin Contributor
After projecting higher-than-expected profits for the year and
armed with a plan to be more "fiscally responsible," the Associated
Students of UCLA’s board of directors is expected to approve its
1996-97 budget today.
Although the association is still operating in the red, it is
"returning to a point of profitability much sooner than we
expected," said board Chairman James Friedman.
Preliminary financial results prepared by ASUCLA Finance
Director Rich Delia show the association to be $400,000 ahead of
schedule and $300,000 ahead of last year.
"We’re projecting in three years that we’ll start to turn a
profit," Friedman said.
The association, which has been losing money for most of the
’90s, has adopted a new plan grounded in short-term losses with the
hopes for long-term gain.
But for that plan to reach fruition, the association will need
to focus on being more "fiscally responsible," said Levin Sy, chair
of the board’s finance committee.
"We’ve put brakes on a lot of spending," he added, stressing
that student activity funds would remain relatively untouched by
the cuts.
Friedman added that ASUCLA is at work "setting up a foundation
for successful financial planning."
"We have to take into account that we’re in charge of an
$80-million-a-year operation. In the future, we’ll react more
responsibly to long-term planning with investments and (redirecting
money) into the infrastructure (of the association)."
Both Friedman and Sy stressed the importance of the newly
remodeled Ackerman Union to the association’s financial
success.
"In the long term, it’s in the best interest for students to
take part in the success of Ackerman."
Unless the massive investment in renovating and expanding the
student store results in much larger bottom-line profits for the
association, the organization could eventually dissolve, or more
likely, be taken over by the university.
Recently, years of poor financial performance at the Student
Store at UC Berkeley prompted that university’s administration to
try and evict student managers from the store, Berkeley student
government leaders said.
Berkeley officials took the Store to Alameda County Superior
Court to force the eviction. The court has yet to render a decision
on the case.
UCLA Chancellor Charles Young has repeatedly said he has no
desire to take over UCLA’s student union, but neither has he
shirked from intervening in the organization’s affairs when the
situation was serious enough.
According to an agreement reached in the 1970s, Young is
ultimately responsible for the association’s financial health.
The ASUCLA board meets at noon today in Kerckhoff Hall’s
first-floor staterooms.