The offices of both the VP Finance and the VP Administration of the AMS are being restructured.
The VP Administration office will be making several changes in the area of sustainability. A position of “sustainability outreach coordinator” will be added. Chris Scott, this year's VP Administration, said the position will act as a liaison between the different sustainability groups in trying to coordinate their efforts. The current sustainability manager position will become the associate VP Sustainability.
“There was a petition going around for the past year and a half to create a vice president on sustainability [position] and put it on the [elections referendum] ballot,” said Scott. “I think the group doing it had valid points, including that sustainability should be much more integral to the AMS as a whole, and so making it an associate vice president portfolio made a lot of sense because we do have a commitment to sustainability and we want to show that.”
However, Scott explained that the change was “largely in semantics,” as the position already existed under a different name.
Additionally, the sustainability funds manager will be transferred to the portfolio of the VP Finance, and the VP Administration office will be hiring a new assistant Student Life Sustainability Centre (SLSC) coordinator. The position existed two years ago but was removed for the current year. Scott explained that a large reason that the position is being brought back is in order to make the SLSC open and available for use on a more consistent basis, as there will now be two people able to staff the space.
In addition to bringing the sustainability funds manager under its portfolio, the VP Finance office will also have two other changes — the creation of a financial systems coordinator and changes to the associate VP Finance job description.
Louis Retief, VP Finance of this past school year, explained that the VP Finance office has seen a significant increase in demand over the past few years.
“The AVP position just had too much on their plate. There were too many programs to run [and] too many things to do. So the job was basically split up into two,” he said.
Retief also added that the financial systems coordinator will now be responsible for all financial assistance programs such as Square and the credit card program, and will also be helping the VP Finance with future projects such as replacing the accounting system.
“The feedback we’ve received from clubs is that … all of them need more sufficient training in regards to doing budgets, in regards to operating and being fiscally responsible for their members — and [with] all these organizations being our subsidies, we are responsible for ensuring that they’re financially literate and responsible,” said Retief.
“By allowing the associate VP Finance to take on more of that responsibility by taking off [the financial systems] off their plate, it will allow the new AVP to really focus on developing those financial assistance programs.”
Share this article
