B.c. student Newspaper threatened with shut down

Student union doubles rent, cuts fee transfer, demands audit

David Karp, The Martlet (University of Victoria)

VICTORIA (CUP) — The Gleaner, the independent student newspaper at Langara College, is wondering whether or not they will even exist in 2008.

Their fees have been reduced, rental rates increased and they are being forced to conduct seven years worth of forensic audits.

The Gleaner, one of two student-run newspapers at the college, had its student fee slashed to $1.75 per student per semester, the same level they were at in 1996. The fees had previously increased according to the consumer price index.

Gleaner business manager and copy coordinator Tanya West said that their fees have been rolled back to 1991 levels and that the students’ union never informed the newspaper about the cuts.

“They did not inform the Gleaner or Langara’s students about these cutbacks,” West said in an e-mail. “It took us a long time to figure out what was going on and now, it’s practically too late to fix it.

“Student unions should never be allowed to cut funding to an autonomous paper without a referendum. Nor should they be allowed to withhold fees that they collect on behalf of a student publication.”

But Alexander Moser, Langara Students’ Union media liaison, said the move was within the student union’s jurisdiction.

“Sometime last year, we consulted with our legal counsel, and the advice he gave us at the time was … that it would be OK to return it to the original terms of the contract,” Moser said, but he didn’t say why the Langara Students’ Union requested the advice.

“I wasn’t a director at that time. It would have been an executive decision. In addition, the legal team here has a great degree of autonomy when it comes to consulting with our lawyers, so it wouldn’t be recorded who asked.”

The legal team is made up of two members of the LSU executive and/or staff.

Additionally, the Langara Students’ Union has more than doubled the newspaper’s rent. The paper now pays $7,000 per year for their space in students’ union building instead of the $3,000 it paid in Sept. 2006.

“As far as square footage goes, the Gleaner Publications Society has a very large space for the rent they’re paying, and that hasn’t increased for 20 years. So an attempt was made to correct that,” said Moser.

The rates for other student-run newspapers in B.C. are as follows: Peak (Simon Fraser University): $6,500 per year; Ubyssey (University of British Columbia): free, with an agreement to provide conditional free ad space to the student union; Martlet (University of Victoria): $5,040 per year; Nexus (Camosun College): free.

The newspapers listed above operate on budgets approximately $100,000 larger than the Gleaner’s annual operating budget.

Now, the students’ society is demanding that the paper provide audits for the past seven years. If it doesn’t, a motion passed by the students’ society says the society will cease forwarding any money to the Gleaner.

The next scheduled fee transfer to the Gleaner is in February. Moser said the society isn’t sure if they have the jurisdiction to hold back fees.

“[Our legal counsel] is checking into our jurisdiction, but now is a better time to say we’re withholding fees, because if it comes that it’s outside of our jurisdiction then we can rescind the motion.

“There are concerns, and the main concerns are their failure to have an annual audit, which is in violation of their own constitution,” said Moser. “We want them to be autonomous, but it’s students’ money. We don’t want to be transferring funds to a fiscally irresponsible organization.”

According to Michael Galea, a professional auditor based out of Toronto, a seven-year forensic audit would cost the Gleaner or the LSU up to $40,000.

Galea also said that societies that size do not need to undergo audits, and that auditing for the current year and one year past would be more than sufficient to find fiscal mismanagement, if there were any.

Under the Societies Act of B.C. (Part 5 – audit), the Gleaner does not require an annual audit, and the requirements for an annual audit within its own constitution is rare among student-run newspapers.

West also said that she was under the impression that the newspaper was being audited with the student union’s annual audit.

“The Gleaner has no problem being audited,” West wrote. “In fact, as the business manager of the Gleaner since 2000, I certainly believed we were being audited.”

But Moser said that’s not the case. “We had no formal agreement with them to audit their books,” said Moser. “We don’t have a lease agreement with them. We don’t have a contract with them.”

Moser said the student union is willing to provide a loan to the Gleaner to pay for the audit. But West said it won’t be enough.

“The Gleaner is broke,” West wrote. “Unless something changes soon, we are printing our last issue and laying off the staff next week — possibly the week after — we’re working on the numbers.”

If that happens, Moser said the paper’s assets would become property of the students’ society and that the Langara Students’ Union would rebuild the paper or put a vote to students to dismantle it.

“If the Gleaner goes under, we will have to re-form another Gleaner unless we change our bylaws, which we’ll have to run a referendum or do at an AGM,” said Moser.

“Because we’re still going to be collecting money, as per our bylaws, for a Gleaner Publications Society.”

If the Gleaner were to dissolve, approximately $85,000 per year would be redirected to the students’ union.

The students’ union has also moved to construct a new students’ union building, the construction of which is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2008.