The Tufts Community Union Senate voted to implement changes to the Treasury Procedures Manual, the document outlining the TCU Treasury’s rules and procedures, during the first meeting of the school year on Sept. 7. The revisions include rewording the section on the Student Support Fund, adjusting the calculation of the food budget and modifying the council structure overseen by the Allocations Board.
Junior Brendan French, TCU treasurer, explained that many of the changes are intended to balance spending throughout the year.
“[We’re] just trying to make sure that we’re spending the amount of money that we have for supplementary funding,” French said. “Then also making sure that when we get closer to the end of the year, there’s still a good chunk of money left over for clubs.”
Junior Anastasiya Koroska, assistant TCU treasurer, explained that one of the most significant changes made to the TPM concerned food budgets.
“Before, [the food budget] was calculated with food expenses over non-food expenses. And clubs would always question in office hours why that is because it didn’t make sense,” Korovska said. “It was just confusing, but it was just simply how it was for several years. But this year, we decided to change it and finally have non-food expenses over [the] total budget.”
Along with these changes, the Treasury will also enforce a stricter cap on club food spending. Religion and culture clubs may now use up to 60% of their budgets on food, while all other clubs are capped at 30%.
“We definitely understand that food can play an important role because food is definitely going to get people to come through the door. But we don’t want it to be everything for a club. We want them to do other things,” French said. “It helps ensure that our clubs are being productive and doing the little niche things that they like to do on campus.”
Another significant change is the reorganization of the council structure within the Allocations Board, the body that allocates TCU funds to student organizations. Under the new system, responsibilities for clubs are divided into more specific councils, each with a funding cap.
“Let’s say you could have a council cap of $100,000 and then you have to review the budgets the clubs in your council have given you and try to make that fit within the council cap given to you by the treasurer,” sophomore Naisha Luthra, an associate TCU treasurer and member of the Allocations Board, explained.
Luthra said that the new council structure will make the budgeting “more efficient.” Luthra spoke specifically about Council Six, which is composed of miscellaneous organizations on campus.
“Creating new councils within Council Six is a big thing for me personally, because I budgeted Council Six last year, and it was really difficult to standardize how to budget each club … because there was such a diverse mix of them,” Luthra said. “So I think it definitely helped by taking them up into sub-councils, almost to have a more uniform way of budgeting them.”
One smaller revision that the Treasury implemented was rewording the description of the Student Support Fund to make it clearer and more concise.
“The Student Support Fund is basically some money that we have for students who come from lower income backgrounds, first-generation and lower-income families,” French said. “[We’re] trying to provide them a resource that they’re able to use whenever they want to, to travel with a club or go to conferences.”
French, who has been a part of the Treasury since his first year at Tufts, has been brainstorming potential changes since then and drew on past notes while drafting edits to the TPM over the summer.
“Since [my first] year, I’ve always had an idea that I would want to eventually run for treasurer,” French said. “So with that in mind, I would write down little things that I thought could be changed possibly in the future.”
French said he hopes the changes will “give [the] Senate and the Treasury more guidelines when it comes to looking at requests from clubs.”
Luthra added that the new rules were established to prevent overspending.
“We did end up spending more than we anticipated last year. So, this year, we’re just trying to make more clear cut rules so that there’s less ambiguity,” Luthra said. “Making those delineations was very important going into this year.”
Developing these changes over the summer involved a lot of work, requiring input from multiple offices at Tufts.
“A little bit of it was from the campus life financial office, and then also the Office of Campus Life. They also are heavily involved with clubs [and] have a few suggestions,” French said. “During the summer, it honestly kind of was a lot, because so many people have opinions … so you kind of have to shift through everything.”
