KSA in $675,000 deficit, December 2024 draft budget shows

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The Kwantlen Student Association is facing a deficit of $674,342, according to its December 2024 draft budget.

The student union’s legal and professional fees, which are under the executive committee’s spending authority, totalled $382,051, a figure that’s $152,051 over the projected $230,000. 

The KSA’s legal and professional fees, which totalled $118,325 for the year to date in September, went into a deficit in the month of November, when the spending increased by 103 per cent and amounted to $240,035. Between November and December, the student union spent an additional $142,016 on legal and professional fees.

Within four years, from 2019 to 2022, the KSA spent a total of $249,646 in legal and professional fees, $132,405 less than what it spent in 2024 alone. In 2023, legal fees jumped to $294,978 compared to $63,212 in 2022. The association’s legal fees were $54,253 in 2019, $73,995 in 2020, and $58,186 in 2021.

The KSA’s clubs and events budget had a deficit of $256,083 in December. The KSA spent $265,249 on events throughout the year — $165,249 over the proposed amount of $100,000. 

Within the insurance expense category, the total amount spent since the beginning of the year was $53,271, which is over the proposed $45,000.

Wages and benefits for staff were $37,785 over the allocated amount of $1,476,658. Wages for elected council members totalled $492,114, which is about $72,000 less than what was proposed. 

The association spent $31,436 on September 2024’s Welcome Week event, which was $10,436 more than the projected funding.

Cell phone and landline expenses were $23,634 — $8,634 over the allocated amount.

Out of the club-support funding budget of $100,000, $50,800 was spent. The executive committee is the spending authority for club-support funding.

For campaigns and lobbying efforts, the executive committee spent $14,906. Coalitions, conferences, and memberships dues for the Alliance of BC Students, which the KSA withdrew its membership from last year, was $21,730.

A total of $170,032 went towards the KSA Cares program, $65,968 less than its projected spending.

For the student union building fund, the KSA collected $1,266,485 in student fees, $42,524 more than what was projected for 2024. At the signing authority of the executive director, Timothii Ragavan, $88,635 went towards lease and maintenance, which is a common area expense, $22,914 went towards equipment, furniture, and upgrades, and $3,835 was spent on repairs, servicing, hardware, and software.

The KSA’s Grassroots Cafe experienced a loss of $163,802. It earned $236,896 in food and beverage sales, which is 60 per cent of what the KSA projected in revenue. The eatery’s expenses totalled $400,698, the lion’s share of which — $284,882 — went towards wages and benefits.

The student association’s REBOOT computer repair program received $150,240 in student fees and its social justice initiative gained $88,928. Its START efforts collected $178,585 in student fees.

The Runner reached out to Ragavan, as well as KSA President Yashanpreet Guron, Associate President Ishant Goyal, and finance and operations committee chairperson Jasmine Kaur Kochhar for a comment. They did not respond before publication.