By: Isabella Urbani, Staff Writer
Former vice president external and community affairs, Eshana Baran, made several Twitter posts to inform students of sizable cuts in the Simon Fraser Student Society’s (SFSS) draft of next year’s budget. The new budget for 2023/24 cut funding for several committees including equity, BIPOC, and academic affairs.
Baran’s first post noted that, in unusual fashion, Council received the drafted preliminary budget only the day before it was set to be voted on at the May 26 Council meeting.
“Typically, the vice-president finance leads the society through an extensive consultation process to create the budget,” said Baran to The Peak. It is “then brought to the executive committee for recommendations, and finally to the Council for approval.” Instead, both the executive committee and Council received the budget at the same time, which Baran called “undemocratic” and “untransparent.”
In the initial draft, more than half of the committee cuts were made to equity, BIPOC, and academic affairs spending. Last year, all three of these committees each operated with a $10,000 budget. Under next year’s plan, the equity committee’s budget would be halved to $5,000, the BIPOC committee to $2,500, and the academic affairs committee to $1,000. Meanwhile, $90,000 was added to the large-scale events budget.
“The importance of [the equity, BIPOC, and academic affairs] committees cannot be overstated, as they work tirelessly to support marginalized communities and foster a more inclusive and equitable campus environment,” said Baran. These same committees played a major role in “the Gondola Campaign, the team name change solidarity campaign, and the support of Black and Indigenous student rights and campaigns.”
Baran did inquire with the vice president finance as to why cuts were being made, specifically, to the equity and BIPOC committees, but did not receive any “clear answers.” Taking measures into her own hands, Baran shared a Zoom link to the May 26 Council meeting on Twitter and called on SFU students to dispute the budget.
“Budgets reflect the political and organizational priorities of a society,” said Baran. “When discretionary budget cuts are made to one area and not another, it sends a message that the area being cut is valued less.”
Due to her online lobbying, Baran was able to make amendments that “restored the budget amounts for the affected committees.” The BIPOC and academic affairs budgets will be raised to $4,500 and $6,000 respectively, while the equity budget will be fully reinstated.
Baran noted on Twitter she was “attacked” by a fellow Council member at that same meeting while attempting to make a separate motion for the Migrants Student United, a club the SFSS had previously supported. The councillor in question “used a delay tactic to disrupt the meeting as part of a wide effort to end the meeting early, preventing the budget motion proposed, and other motions presented to the Council, from being discussed and voted on,” according to Baran.
The meeting eventually lost quorum — the minimum number of participants needed — after the chair, Abhishek Parmar, left during the incident. “The chair should have intervened during the meeting by addressing the disruptive behaviour and maintaining order,” said Baran, who later posted an emergency Zoom link on Twitter to try to continue the meeting.
When asked if the SFSS has a tendency to neglect marginalized communities, Baran agreed, but wasn’t “certain whether this neglect is purposeful.” She did, however, say the budget cuts “suggest that [the] concerns [of marginalized communities] are not being given the attention they deserve.”
“The next step should involve revisiting the budget cuts and restoring the full funding to committees that represent marginalized communities,” said Baran.
Acting vice president Abhishek Parmar was contacted by The Peak for comments but declined to respond.
