The Students’ Union budget for 2017-18 was approved at council on Tuesday evening.

Changes to the budget include:

• $1,000 for Students’ Union executives to have dinner with each faculty association.
• Funding for Students’ Council jackets.
• $5,000 to translate Students’ Union bylaws and policies into French.
• Increasing executive salaries from $35,400 per year to $39,500 per year to bring compensation in line with other schools in Alberta. Read more about the increase here.
• $5,000 for honorariums for indigenous Elders and Oskâpêwis to attend meetings with the Students’ Union. This is based on recommendations from the Aboriginal Students’ Council and university indigenous representatives.
• $600 for piano tuning.

Students’ Union Vice-President (Operations and Finance) Robyn Paches said the new budget includes expenses that are paid for every year but aren’t usually specified, such as funding for jackets and piano tuning.

“Now we have distinct lines in the budget and money won’t have to be pulled out of other pools,” Paches said. “We won’t be scrounging to find funding to repair a piano over in ECHA.”

Board of Governors Representative Colin Champagne said he is glad these annual expenses were included in the budget.

“This is part of what it means to be transparent,” he said. “This is a really good step and maybe students will start to realize that everything has a cost and once we start counting all the services we offer it does add up to a lot.”

Health and Dental Plan Increasing

Council also passed the new health and dental plan for 2017-18.

The health plan fee will increase from $118.00 to $136 and the dental plan fee will increase from $116 to $147. The maximum students will be able to use on dental work next year is being decreased from $750 to $650.

Students’ Union Vice-President (Student Life) Francesca Ghossein said the changes are due to an increase in student health and dental claims.

“Given the lack of regulation to dental fees here in Alberta that reduction of the cap will hopefully incentivize some dentists to keep in mind that students’ plans cap at $650 and do what they can with that,” she said.