ASUCLA assesses agenda

As Associated Students UCLA finishes its most lucrative year yet, the board of directors gave Executive Director Bob Williams greater control over its financial resources during Friday’s meeting.

ASUCLA is up $1.7 million in sales compared to last year, and earned $606,000 more than was projected, said Chief Financial Officer Rich Delia.

In addition, sales at the UCLA Store are up 6 percent from last year, with an income exceeding its budget by over $450,000, which comes at a time when outside retailers are facing difficulty, Delia added.

The association also has $18 million cash in the bank, which is an increase of nearly $1 million compared to last year.

Mike Soderberg, a non-student representative on the board, said ASUCLA’s financial situation is encouraging because sales have hit record numbers in the past two years, with this fiscal year beating 2006.

The board voted unanimously to renew Executive Director Bob Williams’ ability to open bank accounts and sign checks for ASUCLA, and gave him the authority to spend up to 10 percent of a capital project’s budget, such as the construction of a new student center, without board approval.

The affected capital projects would include any future unbudgeted expenditures over $75,000 and budgeted expenditures over $100,000.

Williams said the revised finance policy allows him to determine the scope, feasibility, design and estimated costs of such expenditures.

“We need to spend a little bit of money (up to 10 percent) to get preliminaries about cost and determine the next step,” he said.

Though sales are strong, ASUCLA has hit some difficulty with its marketing campaign, in part due to a poorer performance from the UCLA football team. Williams said advertising in the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register, which are part of the marketing campaign, attracted a lot of Web site hits but did not generate significant sales of UCLA merchandise.

Nonetheless, ASUCLA is introducing new programs to appeal to students, such as a gumball machine that gives away discounts on textbooks to ASUCLA benefits members. Undergraduate representative Amanda York suggested to the board that the discount percentage could be determined by certain colored gumballs.

The gumball machine, which will take quarters like a traditional machine, is part of the core values campaign that is set to run in the early weeks of the winter quarter. The core values campaign would emphasize ASUCLA’s commitment to the university by marketing and publicizing its employment to students, championship service and independent bookstore, said vice chairman Jared Fox.

Another item on ASUCLA’s agenda is working on its commitment to sustainability. Williams said ASUCLA had applied for but did not receive a grant worth several thousand dollars from an environmental program to implement recycle bins in Ackerman Union and Kerckhoff Hall, but added that such bins will be installed in the near future.

ASUCLA facilities will also be home to student groups and faculty members during January’s Focus the Nation sustainability event. According to its Web site, Focus the Nation is a nationwide teach-in that involves students and faculty brainstorming solutions to global warming.

“We’ve been at the forefront of sustainability efforts on this campus for years now, and we have an ongoing commitment to expanding recycling, building green facilities and providing customers with sustainable options,” said graduate representative Hoi Ning Ngai.

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