Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) recorded a loss of over €30,000 in its most recent financial year, which ended on June 30th, 2016, newly filed accounts show.
The results, the accounts of the union say, reflect “a drop in Capitation Income and the increased expenditure to fund the position of University Times Editor, in addition to the Communications Officer’s role”.
As a result of a constitutional change voted on by students, the union incurred additional salary expenses of around €16,000 to support an independent Editor separate from the Communications Officer, alongside around €7,500 in accommodation expenses.
The funding provided to the union by College, known as the “capitation grant”, fell by more than €21,000, however, as part of a 10 per cent cut in funding to student bodies announced in December 2013. The funding is expected to rise next year.
There was also an increase of more than €13,000 as a result of accommodation expenses for the two children of former TCDSU President, Senator Lynn Ruane, who lived on campus with her. These special circumstances were unique to the year.
Both of the union’s on-campus shops, despite being in the centre of a busy city centre campus, recorded a loss of more than €6,500, a fall from a profit of around €13,200 in the previous year. This reflects the “increasingly difficult environment for small shop outlets”, the accounts say.
The SU Cafe also recorded a deficit of €2,052, something the accounts say will be “reversed in the coming year”.
Click, the union’s House 6 computer repair shop, also recorded a loss of more than €11,000.
Expenditure on staff salaries, which includes the salary of the union’s Administrative Officer, Simon Evans, and other office staff, only increased by around €2,000 to about €201,000. But this figure was around €188,300 just two years ago, and does not include more than €220,000 spent on wages and salaries of shop staff.
Evans acts as one of the union’s co-treasurers alongside the president, and compiles the accounts.
Income from ents events was record beating, posting a profit of almost €30,000 compared to a mere €1,856 the previous year.
Despite the change to a full-time Communications & Marketing Officer, the union only recorded a marginal increase of €1,395 in advertising revenue, to around €33,000, according to the accounts. Advertising in The University Times, amounting to around €6,000 (an increase of almost €4,000), is included in this figure, as is income generated from Bank of Ireland and Reads deals with the union that see advertising placed in the newspaper.
The overall effect on the union’s day-to-day finances in the most recent financial year has been “dramatic”, the accounts say. Last year, the union made a profit of €21,000.
According to the accounts, the union has financial reserves of over €500,000, however.
The accounts point to significant expenditure on welfare, publications (which includes The University Times, its website and the union’s annual diary, among other things) as well as on the annual training weekend of the union’s class representatives. Spending on publications increased only marginally (by €1,252) from previous years to around €37,000. While this figure is not broken down in the accounts, around €15,000 continued to be spent on workshops, hotel rooms and catering costs for the training of about 250 representatives.
“All expenditure will have to be reviewed”, the accounts say.
The accounts will be presented at Tuesday’s meeting of the union’s council.
“I think both the union and students should remember that The University Times provides excellent value for money”, said Sinéad Baker, Editor of The University Times, in a statement.
“Last December saw the newspaper break details of the most important student issue in decades after it received highly confidential details from a government working group – a story it broke ahead of the Irish Times.”
She went on: “It would not be possible to challenge the College on the many things it does to harm students or provide our readers with the information they need with diminished resources. We also regularly hold the union to account and it would not be possible to do this without our independence. There are also many areas of expenditure within the union which could be targeted for reductions first, as well as many things which could be making more money”, she said.
“The University Times is also the best-designed student newspaper in the world, was shortlisted for an international editorial writing award alongside the Harvard Crimson, and has won Student Publication of the Year three years running.”
“We look forward to working with the union on this matter. We are always looking for ways to both reduce our production costs and increase advertising revenue, something that we had some success with in the past year”, she concluded.
Speaking to The University Times, a person with knowledge of the union’s accounts over multiple years said that the union “had 15 months to prepare for the increase in expenditure” related to the newspaper. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still act in an advisory capacity to the union.
“In auditing and risk management tongue, the increase in expenditure on this item was reasonably foreseen”, they said.
They also pointed to events, such as the Activist Festival, a general election debate and “myriad research ventures” that led to a “sizeable increase in year-on-year spending”. Such expenditure is “unprecedented in the accounts”, they said.
They also noted that there was “no financial policy of which to speak in TCDSU”. “Officers claim expenses in cash by handing in receipts and even hastily written IOUs”, they said. “Officers are typically not presented with a budget within which to achieve their objectives.”
Highlighting a point within the past five years that the union made a profit of around €70,000, they said that the results “are likely a result of a combination of factors years in the making”.
“A €110,000 swing in bottom line over five years would have someone fired in the private sector, particularly if they tried to explain it by reference to a foreseen, singular increase in expenditure.”
Ruane, who as TCDSU president served as chief executive of the union during the financial year in question, was not able to provide comment to The University Times by the time of publication.
Speaking to The University Times, Kieran McNulty, the current President of TCDSU, stated that the extra cost for accommodation and sabbatical salaries had “caused some strain”. He added that the union has begun preparing its commercial investment strategy as well as meeting with shop staff. “We just have to revamp the shops, and that’s fine. A lot of that was done over the summer, and more will be done again”
“We need to look at which services the SU should be looking to keep and where we can cut and keep the level of service that we have”, he stated. He said that, while he expected the union would have “a bit of an overspend” in the current financial year, he was confident that “in the next year or so, [the union will] be on the way to an upturn again”.
The changes to the constitution of the union voted on by students that saw the splitting of the Communications Officer role into an independent Editor of The University Times and a separate Communications & Marketing Officer position came about after a constitutional review working group concluded its work in 2014.
It had actually recommended that the Communications Officer and Entertainments Officer posts be merged into one single Entertainments & Marketing Officer post alongside an independent Editor of The University Times. This would have resulted in no additional expenditure. A motion passed at the union’s council, however, argued that there should be a post of Communications & Marketing Officer in addition to an independent Editor.
There was no formal consideration of the impact that this would have on the union’s finances.
Dominic McGrath contributed reporting to this piece.
