AMS Council will debate and vote on the 2010/2011 budget later tonight, with the elimination and reduction of several services and jobs paid for by students slated to become official. (Click here for the official budget)

In a March council meeting, Tayyar told council that unless drastic cuts were made to the budget, the AMS, which had revenues of $13.9 million in 2009/2010, would go bankrupt in less than two years.

It was at that meeting that several cuts were made to some of the services the AMS provides, including a 50% reduction of the Safewalk Budget, and the elimination of the AMS Equity office.

The budget also contains additional cuts, including $37,000 from executive staff salaries, and the elimination of a Policy Analyst, saving the society over $75,000.

As well, the $38,000 subsidy to Block Party—the year-end concert put on since 2008—has been eliminated, with the AMS pledging that a new, revenue-neutral model will be introduced by October for the event, which may have a new name. Last April’s Block Party, which had the Barenaked Ladies as the headliner, lost $142,841.

“Ticket sales, maybe students didn’t like band? I heard complaints about that,” said Tayyar about the loss.

“We want something that’s revenue-neutral, so we’re not going to lose money…hopefully we’ll have different options to go forward with,” he added.

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However, the budget also contains a few increases in expenditures, chief among them special funds for various branches of student government. This includes a $22,500 fund for a new BC lobbying group, an $11,000 increase in the “Special Projects” fund for the executive, and a new $8000 fund for “Conference and Official Business” for the executive, which has already been spent on a professional development conference in Calgary. These increases were not allocated in the preliminary budget sent out by Tayyar in April, but were added after it was decided to cut the Policy Analyst position.

Increases to different parts of the budget “depends on what the focuses on the executives are,” said Tayyar, and said it was the priority of the executive to meet and work with different student unions during their term in office. “It’s very beneficial to see how other societies are operating.”

The budget also includes a proposal to give each of the executives up to $1,200 for a supplementary health care plan, similar to what permanent staff in the AMS receive, and a $75/month cell phone plan.

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Andrew Carne, a former AMS councillor who was on the budget committee, criticized the way the budget was created.

“The whole process was a bit of a joke. We’d have meetings, go through the budget in great detail, and approve each section. Then right at the end we got an email from Ben Cappellacci (the VP Academic) or Elin Tayyar saying a few ‘minor changes’ had been made, without detailing any of them. I’m not impressed.”

Tayyar defended the process, saying that ultimately, all changes to the budget were approved by the committee. However, he acknowledged that there were frustrations.

“It was very difficult, because 4 or 5 meetings couldn’t take place because we couldn’t reach quorum, so we opted for email discussions a lot of the time.

“The process wasn’t perfect.”

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