I’ve been here before.
Since my second year at UCLA, at about this time every year, I’ve sat down to write a column about the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s annual surplus. I’m a fourth-year now, and the makeup of the council has changed since I started this tradition. But the problem hasn’t.
If anything can be said about surplus, it is that it’s fundamentally unstable. Instead of riding its ups and downs, the council, under the leadership of President John Joanino, should commit to long-term funding sustainability and decouple USAC programs from the unsteady fund.
Surplus is composed of unspent funds from previous councils, and it’s hard to tell what the surplus will be during any given year.
For example, my first year, before I began as a Daily Bruin columnist, the 2010-2011 council made a push, spearheaded by then-Finance Committee Chair Ronald Arruejo, for student groups to efficiently spend the funds USAC allocated to them. Sure enough, the surplus came in below projections the following year. By the time I began pushing out USAC columns, many campus groups were in a tizzy because of the perception there was not enough money to go around.
That type of spectacle hurts student groups, who saw a drop-off in their programming funds. Moreover, it’s an illustration of how reliance on the surplus can get USAC into some hairy situations, and why a small, steady surplus is desirable.
There are two steps the council should take to make that a reality: making sure not to leave much surplus for next year and seeking non-surplus funding sources for their programs.
The first piece of advice, to burn through surplus, may not be as fiscally irresponsible as it sounds. The implication is not that USAC should frivolously spend the money at its disposal.
Instead, USAC should use surplus to cover whatever costs it sees fit, and put the rest into the endowment fund, a fiscal mechanism established by last year’s council. The endowment serves an investment function: USAC contributes to a fund managed by the UCLA Foundation and gets a return of about 5 percent each year.
But it can also serve a secondary function: to create stability by siphoning off surplus funds, ensuring they don’t roll over and inflate next year’s surplus number.
Right now, the return from the endowment is allotted by a 50-50 formula between the USA Programming Fund and the Contingency Fund. But that money could be used to create sustainable budgets for programs currently funded by surplus. Which brings me to my second point – USAC should find ways to sustainably fund programs rather than underwriting them with surplus money.
For example, Financial Supports Commissioner Lauren Rogers recently asked the council for $3,238 to award textbook scholarships to 50 students. But the wisest thing Rogers said during her presentation was that she was looking for alternative, sustainable sources of funding.
Council programming shouldn’t be linked to a fund that can come in at roughly $500,000 one year and about half that the next, as was the case three and two years ago respectively.
The student body recognized this last year when it voted to tie Bruin Bash to a specific pot of student fees, rather than perennially drawing from surplus to fund the event.
USAC should seek a similar fate for other programs, such as the JazzReggae Fest, which usually receives surplus funding. Cultural Affairs Commissioner Jessica Trumble indicated at a meeting last month she would ask for money from surplus – and she should get it. But in the meanwhile, she should be looking, like Rogers, for a permanent funding solution.
The key is to realize that it’s not as if the council would be spending less money by disentangling itself from surplus. Instead, it would be spending the money it collects from students in a timely and sensible manner, while the students from whom those fees are gathered still attend UCLA.
The idea is not a new one – but this surplus and this council are new. That doesn’t mean Joanino and his fellow councilmembers have to start from scratch in dealing with the funds. Even a cursory glance at USAC’s recent history can provide them with an ample template.