Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union halved its accounting shortfall in its most recent financial year, posting a deficit of almost €15,000, newly filed accounts show.
The union had lost more than €30,000 in the previous year. For the second year in a row, the accounts point to the impact of increased expenditure on The University Times, since the 2014 decision by students to introduce an independent editor of the newspaper, who receives a salary and campus accommodation.
The accounts also state that the “significant expenditure” on welfare-related activities and its class representative training event “will now have to be reviewed”. The union spent nearly €45,000 on both this event and its council meetings last year, and almost €23,000 on welfare.
Publication expenses, which, in addition to The University Times, include the union’s website and the printing of thousands of student diaries, jumped from around €37,000 to just over €43,000.
The union’s shops in House Six and the Hamilton, which posted a loss of €6,500 in the previous year, recorded a profit of more than €10,000. The union’s Click computer repair clinic posted yet another large deficit, losing more than €6,000. The union, despite having a full-time Communications and Marketing Officer, also recorded a drop of more than €6,000 in advertising income.
The accounts also reflect a modest €8,000 increase in capitation revenue from the College, following the 2015 decision to allocate such funding on a per-student basis. While the figure was down from the record-beating €30,000 in the previous year, Ents continued its winning streak with profits of more than €17,000.
Though last year’s accounts promised to reverse losses at the SU Cafe in Goldsmith Hall, the cafe recorded a deficit of €1,613. Though it noted the cafe is “popular and reflects well on the students who run it”, the accounts say “the SU will not fund a loss making café in the long term”.
Expenditure on staff salaries, which includes the salary of the union’s Administrative Officer, Simon Evans, and other office staff, increased by a further €2,000 to about €203,000. This figure was around €188,000 just two years ago, and does not include the more than €200,000 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. In his report featured in the accounts, he states that the union can sustain a loss-making situation “for one or two more years”, and must use this time “to get a grip on its finances”.
In an email statement, Kevin Keane, the President of TCDSU, said “the improvement in our finances this year as compared to last is excellent news”.
Though he noted that the union’s deficit had been cut in half, he said it was “critical that we tackle the deficit with a long-term perspective”. He pointed to additional planned savings related to the class representative training event.
“The University Times is also a significant pressure on Union accounts”, he said. “There simply was not enough planning done when the position of Editor was created, to develop a sustainable funding model.”
“The editor has been extremely helpful to the Union in working with us to increase advertising revenue to the paper. I am confident that this will be successful, and that we will find a way to copperfasten the paper’s financial future.”
Speaking to The University Times, a person with knowledge of the union’s accounts over multiple years criticised the focus on the newspaper in the union’s accounts. “It is quite strange to be suffering the consequences of expenses flagged so long ago”, they said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still act in an advisory capacity to the union on a regular basis.
They went on: “It is not that significant an expenditure relative to a lot of the other things that the students’ union spends. It is also the most successful thing the students’ union spends money on.”
The University Times is currently the holder of the award for best all-around non-daily student newspaper in the world, as judged by the US-based Society of Professional Journalists.
The accounts will be presented at Tuesday’s meeting of the union’s council.
