Responding to the Auditor's Report on Access UVic's finances

At the January 31 board meeting, it is expected that the UVSS board will make an important decision pertaining to the Constituency group for Students with a Disability, common known as Access UVic.

The Motion
The motion on the meeting agenda in its entirety is as follows:

WHEREAS the UVSS Board has a fiduciary duty to ensure that members’ fees are properly accounted for; and

WHEREAS based on the findings of the auditor’s report, the UVSS no longer has the confidence that student fees will be properly accounted for by Access Association of Disabled Students; and

WHEREAS based on the findings of the auditor’s report, there is no confidence that Access Association of Disabled Students could enact lasting reforms to address these issues; therefore

BIRT the UVSS board make known to students with disabilities on campus that it will be accepting a constitution and bylaws that has been ratified at a general meeting that has been given due notice, for a new constituency group to fill the role of the UVSS constituency group ‘Society for Students with a Disability’ as laid out in Bylaw 21 of the UVSS Bylaws; and

BIFRT the UVSS board will offer to provide resources to students with disabilities on campus in order to create a new constituency organization, and that such resources may include: room bookings, assistance with policy development and helping to organize a general meeting; and

BIFRT the UVSS consider, on a case by case basis, covering liabilities to the Access Association of Disabled Students’ Board of directors that are directly related to the operations of Access Association of Disabled Students’ up to January 24, 2011 and not in excess of the amount currently held in trust by the UVSS; and

BIFRT if at some point in the future the new group wishes to separately incorporate they may do so under the guidelines set out in Bylaw 18.4 of the UVSS constitution and Bylaws

It is certainly possible that the final motion that is voted on will look nothing like this.

The Auditor's report on Access UVic finances
As mentioned last night, the auditors report is now public as per the motion passed last Monday, but not widely available. Having read it, I can confirm that all the concerns raised about Access' finances in a preliminary report made available last August are confirmed in the final version. These included poor accounting record keeping, cash withdrawals from Access' account that are unaccounted for, cheques signed by only one signing authority and debit purchases made for items that appear to be for personal use. There are also several new discoveries made in the latest report as well such as failure to remit deductions made for incomes and GST on contracts.

In short, I am confident that the UVSS did the right thing in freezing Access UVic's finances, holding their fees in trust in ensuring this audit was conducted.

Moving Forward
Responding to the findings of the Auditor's Report is where this issue gets complicated. Now that it has been strongly established that fees students paid to Access UVic were not being properly accounted for, a return to the status quo of January 2010 would be unacceptable.

As the UVSS has a fiduciary duty to ensure that members’ fees are properly accounted for, any action taken to move forward on this issue must involve some form of UVSS oversight given the findings of the audit.

Access UVic is its own incorporated Society. As a result, it is in charge of its own accounting unlike many other groups in the UVSS who make use of the UVSS's accounting department. The proposed solution on the agenda of Monday's board meeting would create a constituency group for students with disabilities that is under the umbrella of the UVSS. This would give the UVSS oversight of the finances of such an organization and ensure student money is being properly accounted for.

This is, however, not the only possible solution. In fact, some legal issues raised by David Foster seem to be worth investigating before taking the proposed action. Questions about whether or not the UVSS would be breaking its own bylaws as well as who is entitled to the current fee being collected on behalf of Access should be addressed before the proposed action is taken.

I also question the clause stating "based on the findings of the auditor’s report, there is no confidence that Access Association of Disabled Students could enact lasting reforms to address these issues." Is it true that Access cannot reform itself? Has the organization been given any opportunity to do so?

An alternate solution could be to work with Access UVic to come up with the lasting reforms the UVSS desires to see. Presumably, such reforms would allow the UVSS some sort of oversight over Access' finances. Of course, part of the reason Access incorporated itself as a separate Society in the first place was to attain a level of autonomy over its finances*. There could certainly be resistance to having UVSS oversight of its finances again.

Regardless of the route chosen to move forward on this issue, so long as it ensures UVSS oversight of Access' finances and allows for a timely resolution of this matter, I will be supportive of it. No doubt, this saga has meant some students with disabilities have not received the support and assistance they need. It is an unfortunate byproduct of ensuring student fees are properly accounted for.


*It is relevant to note that this current saga between Access UVic and the UVSS is not the first time the two have been in a conflict over the spending of student fees. One of the driving forces that led to Access UVic forming a separate Society occurred in 2005. Access held an event at IQ Bistro during which food and alcohol was purchased. The receipt was submitted to the UVSS Director of Finance Shamus Reid for reimbursement. Although the UVSS had no policy at the time that prevented using student fees to purchase alcohol, Reid declared that the alcohol portion of the receipt would not be reimbursed. It took several years before relations between Access and the board improved.