New budget may help ASUCLA finances

By Mason Stockstill

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The financially ailing Associated Students of UCLA has big
expectations for the coming school year, with a proposed budget
predicting a net surplus of $2 million.

Such a surplus would stand in stark contrast to ASUCLA’s
current monetary situation, since the association expects to fall
$1.5 million below budget by the end of the year.

Next year’s budget, which will be discussed and voted on
at today’s ASUCLA Board of Directors meeting, calls for some
substantial changes to the way the association does business in
order to bring its finances back to health.

“If this budget is approved, there will be layoffs,”
said Randy Hall, chair of ASUCLA’s finance committee, which
recommended the budget to the board at its meeting last Friday.

ASUCLA officials had previously made it known that layoffs would
have to occur for the association to right itself financially, but
which positions will be eliminated or consolidated won’t be
announced until after the budget is approved.

“We want the employees to hear about it from management
first,” Hall said, adding that any layoffs will take place
all at once instead of in separate waves.

There are other changes beside making layoffs. An addition
students may see in the UCLA Store next year is CD sales. According
to Student Union Director Jerry Mann, selling CDs in the store was
a common suggestion when the last Student Union Survey was taken in
1998.

The budget also calls for ASUCLA to begin a more aggressive
marketing campaign geared toward alumni purchasing BearWear over
the Internet.

“The alumni market hasn’t been tapped as it
should,” Hall said. The association began selling BearWear
online last year, with lackluster results. BearWear sales in
general have been lagging projections by more than $900,000 this
year.

While the budget forecasts a sunny situation for the association
next year, the big question of whether the UCLA Store will be
outsourced to an outside operator remains unanswered.

“The budget that’s being presented anticipates that
the store would remain an independent, self-operating store,”
said ASUCLA Executive Director Patricia Eastman. “It does not
preclude changing at some later point, if it were determined that
that was necessary.”

That’s because the Joint Operating Committee, which is
made up of administrators and ASUCLA representatives, is still
meeting and discussing various strategies the association could
take.

“We have a collaborative, cooperative effort that has been
going on and has been making progress,” said Chancellor
Albert Carnesale in a news conference on Monday. “The idea is
for (the association) to remain operating the way it has operated
in the past.”

The committee was formed in April with the intention of allowing
the university and the association to formally discuss the issues
facing ASUCLA.

“I’m hoping a set of recommendations will emerge
from the committee on a wide range of issues, the most immediate of
which is the financial condition of the store,” said Vice
Chancellor of Budget and Finance Steve Olsen, who chairs the
committee.

Once the budget is approved by the board, it is still possible
for the board to change plans if necessary.

“There’ll be a revisiting of that issue at some
point in the future, once this budget has been implemented and the
modifications we’re making have an opportunity to take
hold,” Eastman said.

The ASUCLA Board of Directors will discuss the proposed budget
at its meeting today, at 12 noon in Kerckhoff Hall room 131.