Aucklanders waste money

NZSPA Reporter Poor administration has been blamed for the Auckland University Students Association's record loss of £10,000 last year. The deficit will jeopardise the Association's operations this year.

Every student enrolled at the university is obliged to pay £6 per year students association fee. Of this. £3 goes towards a building fund and the other £3 is held directly by the association.

This should, in theory, mean that with just under 7000 students enrolled, the students association will have about £20,000 to provide services for students.

But, from this sum of £20,000 received from students' fees, half is being spent to write off the record deficit incurred during 1966.

A further £6000 will go to the administration for staff and office expenses. This will leave the association with £4000 for the year.

This must be used to run the cafeteria Craccum, the coffee bar, capping, revue and will also be used to pay affiliation fees to the New Zealand University Students Association and New Zealand University Sports Union.

How did the association run up a record loss last year? "Poor administration," says the treasurer, Mr. David Jones. "People wouldn't keep to their budgets and the association just kept handing out money indiscriminately."

Capping lost £1000, Revue £3500, Tournament cost Auckland as host university £1000, Craccum lost a further £1200 and provisional figures just released show that the cafeteria made an unexpected overall loss of about £2800.

The executives resolved to take measures to ensure that such a combination of losses does not occur again. The president (Richard Wood) obtained an overdraft to cover the loss and an accountant will be appointed to look into the situation and advise on a workable system of curbing expenditure and wastage.