Transparency and SFU’s Budget
I haven’t forgotten a conversation I had last year with SFU senior administration members. I was trying to learn from them about the true state of SFU’s 2023/24 budget and how many APSA members would lose their jobs. In response to my questions, a senior administration member used the phrase “transparency at the right time.”
Of course, there are all sorts of issues with that vague declaration. When is the right time? Who determines what the right time is? Would George Orwell add it to his stock of examples in his now-famous essay, Politics and the English Language? Back then, in the face of imminent job loss, the obvious response is, why isn’t now the right time?
Struggling with renewed budget woes at SFU, members like you want concrete answers. If you recall from the SFU Townhall on January 26, 2025, APSA vice-president, Kim O’Donnell, very reasonably asked what portion of the $21 million shortfall projected by the senior administration wasn’t due to the shortfall of international tuition revenue? The response from the VPA didn’t really answer Kim’s important question. And yet, it’s a critical question for so many of us at the University to help understand the state of SFU’s finances. After all, further job loss for APSA members could occur, and we all want to know why.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether transparency around the state of SFU’s budget will come anytime soon. To be fair, I don’t think that this is entirely SFU’s fault: after all, no one had planned budget-wise for a second-quarter surprise from the federal government that would further reduce the cap on international study permits. It’s undoubtedly a scramble to further reduce budgets well after the fiscal year has started. I’m hearing of faculties cutting operating funds, delaying computer renewal and renovations, lowering temporary instruction budgets and freezing many faculty searches, all in an attempt to bear some of the projected deficit load. Uncertainty is rampant.
One key difficulty, however, lies in questions such as Kim’s going unanswered. As one APSA member put it to me a few weeks ago, “All we get are giant, ominous messages from Dilson.” The information void remains palpable.
Like last year, the University has emphasized that its central budget difficulty is around international student enrollment. Unfortunately, in APSA’s review of SFU’s financial filings from last year, the University’s narrative around international students was only part of a larger budget story.
From that June 2024 report authored by Caryn Duncan for APSA:
“Overall, based on SFU’s audited financial statements for 2023/24, it is impossible not to conclude that something went really wrong with the 2023/24 budget process. Contrary to the claims made by SFU, checks and balances were not in place to safeguard against deficits. SFU’s budgeting was $11 million off in 2023/24 — the Consolidated Budget projected a $6.2 million surplus, but at year-end, SFU ran a $5 million deficit. It appears that internal controls were lacking.”
It’s not unreasonable to wonder whether SFU’s internal controls have been refreshed and whether the difficulties identified by the June 2024 Duncan report aren’t also haunting SFU’s budget this year. Given SFU’s apparent lack of transparency with the community around its finances, we are unlikely to have answers to these questions until SFU publicizes its finances after the end of the fiscal year.
It just shouldn’t be that members of a significant department like the Office of Community Engagement, who saw its doors shuttered in mid-January, are being told that this was due to budget difficulties, yet the details of those same budget difficulties appear veiled from the SFU community.
We could all use some transparency — and, yes, now is the right time.