Oxford University Students’ Union stands to make a loss of about £61,000 this year despite budgeting for a £110 profit. 2008/9 saw the organisation lose £57,000 and OUSU predicts a loss of about £66,000 for 2010/11.
Stefan Baskerville, OUSU President argues, “OUSU is not funded to support its current operational structure”.
OUSU’s income this year was £366,101, sourced mainly from grants. Its total expenditure is increasing year on year.
To make up this deficit it has been proposed that OUSU ask the University for an increased grant of £390,000 for the year 2010-11, as the current grant of £233,000 is not sufficient.
When questioned at OUSU Council on the issue of autonomy when asking the University for a block grant, Baskerville stated, “How much autonomy do we really have when we’re predicting 66k deficits for the next year?”
The main sources of expenditure are elected officers (£121,182 per year) and buildings costs, which amount to £129,095. Baskerville admitted, “OUSU spends an excessive portion of its income on costs associated with its premises.”
He added, “OUSU would place a higher priority on maintaining services to students than on services costs.”
Some of OUSU’s costs are soaring – in 2008/9 OUSU publications only cost the organisation £120. This year OUSU estimates it will have spent £12,000 on its publications.
Elections are also costly, with £2,650 spent on them this year, £1000 more than estimated. These costs are generated from OUSU’s decision to use mi-voice software. Despite the introduction of this software and OUSU’s “Get Involved” campaign, voter turnout continues to be disappointing. The software is also used by several common rooms.
Officer training this year is set to cost £180, while next year OUSU will spend £3,710 on training. Conference attendance has set OUSU back £905 in 2009/10 and looks set to cost £1,235 next year. Lack of funding has prevented OUSU officers from attending conferences in the past and OUSU claim in their guide to the 2010/11 budget, “This means that we simply don’t find out about developments in other SUs and don’t therefore take advantage of initiatives which are being launched elsewhere.”
One third year Classics student said, “It would be nice if OUSU were more relevant than it is but it’s inevitable that it won’t be because of JCRs. People don’t know where their money is going and perhaps the University should split up these funds amongst JCRs.”
The finances for OSSL, a subsidiary of OUSU that is responsible for running Freshers’ Fair, Oxide Radio and various publications including The Oxford Student and the Oxford Handbook look much healthier. The OSSL report, however, doesn’t provide any running costs and only shows estimated costs for 2009/10 and next year’s budget.
The OxStu’s projected income for this year is £9,000 and OSSL predict it will almost double next year to £17,000. OSSL have cut printing costs for their publications and seen improvements in advertising, which they consider to be a direct result of employing a long-term Advertising Co-ordinator.
However Oxide has a deficit of £1,500, and next year the station is expected to cost a further £1,000. Oxide has faced financial difficulties for years and in 2006 OUSU cut Oxide’s budget of £5,700 completely. This resulted in presenters being forced to pay for their own shows.
One third year St. Hilda’s student said, “Sadly, I don’t think anyone would really notice that much if they got rid of Oxide”.
In an e-mail to fellow MCR presidents, St. Catz MCR co-president Ben Britton described the OUSU budget as “an improvement on last years offering” but “still substantially lacking and fundamentally flawed”.
He continued, “The current income streams are not sufficient to cover costs, which will compound OUSU’s perilous financial situation. This will only force OUSU to rock up, bowl in hand, and ask our University for a vast grant or loan, no doubt sourced from our University fees, with many potential strings attached”.
Drowning in money
The New York Times headline reads “Obama Turns up Heat.” As a President under fire himself, from angry tea-partiers and ex-Cosmo centerfolds to the voters of Massachusetts, he better have something good to be cooking. How ’bout the Supreme Court?
There is at least one Republican in the Senate who will, finally, like the smell coming from Obama’s kitchen – former campaign rival turned critic-in-chief John McCain. Why? Because Obama is all het up on account of a 5-4 decision by the Court to overturn vital parts of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, otherwise known as McCain-Feingold. The ruling means that limits introduced in the Bill on corporate spending in US elections will no longer hold.
“Mid-terms should be interesting, and good luck passing healthcare.”
The Majority decision makers called it a vindication of free speech. Obama called it a victory for oil producers, health insurers, and wall street banks. It isn’t too hard to see why he’s peeved—the decision comes just as Obama loses his filibuster-proof Senate majority, and given his anti-health-insurer, anti-wall street agenda, it’s a safe bet that most of the extra cash sloshing around won’t be going his way. Put simply, mid-terms should be interesting, and good luck passing healthcare.
However, we shouldn’t be too cynical. There are good, nonpartisan reasons to disapprove of this decision. The question is what we really think free speech in the political arena should be. Everyone knows that free speech is not absolute – you can’t yell fire in a theatre, you can’t lie in court, so far, so obvious. But there is an attitude that expression in the political realm should be unfettered. In a certain sense, that’s a good attitude. Yet between this attitude and the idea that campaign finance should be unrestricted lies a litany of miss-steps and conflated ideas.
The most wrong-footed amongst these is the equation of spending with expression. There is, perhaps, something to be said for the idea that by sponsoring a candidate, or paying for an advert, one is expressing a political view. But spending is still not expression. Not quite. It’s an issue of range versus scale. When we protect political speech, we say that there should be no limit to the range of ideas that can be communicated in the political realm. When we protect political spending, we say there should be no limit to the scale those ideas are expressed at.
“Unlimited campaign finance is, in effect, contrary to free speech.”
The two aren’t actually compatible. If there is limited space for ideas to be expressed – say, advertising space, then allowing those that can afford it unlimited spending will inevitably limit the range of ideas being expressed. Unlimited campaign finance is, in effect, contrary to free speech. This is what Obama is talking about when he says that the decision will “drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
If you were having a discussion at a dinner party, and a drunken, ruddy-faced, bemoustached middle aged man started to, at arms length, scream directly at your face in a torrent of spittle and vitriol, you wouldn’t be accused of violating free speech if you, wiping your spectacles, asked him to keep it down a bit. You would merely be ensuring that everyone could be heard, and a meaningful conversation had. What the Supreme Court has defended is the age old right of American Corporations to spit in American Faces. It’s in the constitution, look it up.