ViCE starts year with $30k debt; VSA passes censure at first meeting

At its first meeting on Sunday night, the 26th Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council voted to censure Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) due to a $30,000 debt, amounting to one fifth of its total budget for the year.

The debt has largely been attributed to lackluster ticket sales for last year's Of Montreal concert that did not reach the organization's projection; the amount has also led to some questions of ViCE's financial management.

"The thing that I probably find scariest in the situation is that there were maybe two or three people on ViCE Exec last year that had full awareness of what was happening and the way this was going to end," said VSA Vice President for Finance Jason Rubin '13. "So the people that are now on ViCE didn't know and have now inherited this and now are first realizing, so that's an accountability issue within ViCE."

"And then there's the accountability issue between ViCE and the VSA," he added.

Sunday evening's censure addresses both issues—the financial management of ViCE and oversight by the VSA. While some VSA censures in the past have amounted to a warning, the ViCE censure carries with it specific financial terms. Most censured organizations are referred to the VSA Activities Committee, but ViCE will instead report to the VSA Finance Committee.

In addition to its normal programming reports to VSA Council, ViCE will be required to present reports to the VSA Finance Committee that detail how it is budgeting for programs and specifically how its budget has been distributed among ViCE's committees. For individual expenditures over $4,000, ViCE will have to come to the Finance Committee for approval.

Though the terms may seem pointed, neither the ViCE nor the VSA leadership characterizes the censure as punitive. The issue becomes complicated because the annual turnover of ViCE leadership means that no member of the current ViCE Executive Board is culpable.

"It's basically entirely preventative," said Rubin. "The only punitive part of it is if the preventative measures are not followed, there's a fine. There is no fine right away."

In fact, ViCE helped design the terms to which it is now subject, and despite concern over past financial management, Rubin is quick to praise the current ViCE Executive Board in its approach to the issue.

"Conversations that I've had with [Rubin] basically amounted to that if a punishment were to come in the form of a fine it would be unproductive," said ViCE Director Mitchell Gilburne '12. "And if a punishment were to hinder the way that ViCE functions then campus programming would take a hit."[Disclosure: Gilburne is a Contributing Editor of The Miscellany News.]

"I think the VSA has been very mindful of that and has created a system that enforces, encourages and mandates dialogue and communication without creatively limiting my Exec Board, which is the best sort of punishment I can ask for," he continued.

This is not the first time ViCE has begun the year with a significant debt. At the start of the 2010-2011 year, ViCE held $12,000 in debt from the previous year. In concert with the VSA Executive Board, ViCE decided to accept half of the debt and roll the last $6,000 to the 2011-2012 year. This number is included in the current $30,000 debt figure.

The issue of the recurring debt as well as its size has troubled both the VSA and ViCE, especially in regard to the organization's unique role on campus. While it is not entirely unusual for a few student organizations to end a year with a slight debt, the size of ViCE's budget and its position as the campus's chief programming organization make its debt concerning. In a particularly Vassar sense, ViCE is, in a way, too big to fail.

Gilburne explained that the organization would be taking on all of the debt this year rather than a portion of it, like last year. "We are eating the debt," he said. "The last thing we want to do is pass that on to next year.

Within the organization itself, both Gilburne and ViCE Finance Director Sean Shoemaker '12 say that accountability is a top priority for the year. According to Shoemaker, he plans to ask ViCE committee chairs to print out budgets to discuss with him one to two weeks before an event.

"So we make sure that we have everything in the books before the payment is made," he said. "That's basically what the censure is doing, but we're doing it on a small scale also."

Part of ViCE's plan for fiscal responsibility includes predicting costs before making any purchases or signing contracts. Over-optimistic sales projections have widely been blamed, but Shoemaker also suggested that a significant portion of the debt came from Building & Grounds costs that were not adequately accounted for before the charges came in over the summer.

As for splitting the debt internally, Shoemaker said that an equal percentage has been taken off of each ViCE committee's budget.

According to Gilburne, the $12,000 debt accrued before the 2010-2011 year, "was more of a bookkeeping error in that some [Buildings and Grounds] costs didn't come through, and then came down the pipes at the end of the year, so we thought we had $12,000 that we didn't, whereas the $30,000 does come from true mismanagement."

Even without one-fifth of their original budget, both Shoemaker and Gilburne remain optimistic about this year's programming docket, though VSA Vice President for Activities Mookie Thottam '12 suggested that the organization might review the process of planning the spring concert.

"It's their most controversial decision that they make every year. They always take heat for it, and it's also putting us in the hole, so it's obviously a process that's going to be reviewed," he said, while remaining hopeful. "They've got some great, great plans that I think could be not only great for this year but be great for every year as far as the large concerts go."

"We're still going to throw a huge spring concert, so don't you worry about that," said Shoemaker.