Carleton’s student unions filed a court application Nov. 10 to force the university’s Board of Governors to hand over the remainder of approximately $7 million in student fees.

The board began withholding funds Nov. 1 after the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) had not shown the board their financial audits, according to Meera Chander, CUSA vice-president (finance).

“We need a judge to help make a decision,” said CUSA president Alex Sirois. “We’re at a standstill where administration is refusing to budge and we are not prepared to hand over our budgets.”

According to Jason MacDonald, director of Carleton’s department of university communications, the university is acting on the recommendations of its own auditors, who need to ensure the money the university collects from students and hands over to the unions is being used correctly.

“This is an issue of good governance,” MacDonald said. “The school collects almost $7 million in fees from students on behalf of CUSA/GSA.”

MacDonald said the board has already disbursed approximately $3.5 million required to cover the health and dental plan premium so student coverage is not affected.

Some of the remaining $3.5 million has been disbursed to cover funds required for clubs and groups to continue to operate, MacDonald said.

However, according to Chander, no funding has been received yet.

Talks between CUSA, GSA and the administration began in October 2009 when the administration first started showing interest in reviewing their financial audits, according to Phil Robinson, executive co-ordinator of the GSA.

Robinson said the unions are concerned with the administration micromanaging student services once they had access to the financial audits.

“The threat they are making is getting rid of student associations,” Robinson said.

MacDonald said the university is not interested in micromanaging the student associations.

CUSA and the GSA have hired Toronto-based lawyer Ted Maduri, from law firm Davis LLP, to represent them, according to Sirois.

The money to pay for the lawyer will come out of the union budgets.

Sirois said this is not only the first time the university has withheld fees from them, but it is the first time the university has asked to see their financial audits.

MacDonald could not confirm whether or not financial audits had been handed over in previous years.

“Withholding the fees is not a good step for the university,” Chander said. “Our service centres employ 100 people. This is affecting a lot of people.”

Chander said any student who would like to see a copy of the financial audits is welcome to do so in the CUSA office.  

MacDonald said that students and campus clubs or groups shouldn’t be impacted at all at this point because the university has disbursed the funding required for them to continue operating.

GSA vice-president (finance) Nick Falvo said the main things administration has been looking at with the GSA’s audits have been the capital development fund and the accessibility fund, which were both voted on at a referendum and have a levy.

“We are trying to ground our right to be an autonomous organization,” Falvo said.

The next step for CUSA will be filing for an application for the judiciary process.

According to MacDonald, the university is aware that a lawyer has been hired.

“If there is legal action, the university will vigorously defend our position,” MacDonald said.

–with files from Adam Dietrich
and Andrew Nguyen