By Aleysha Haniff
Associate News Editor
Student groups director Osman Hamid plans to encourage the Ryerson Students’ Union to accept Gallivan and Associates as the student union’s health and dental plan broker at the next executive meeting.
The motion to sign on with Gallivan was passed at a contentious board of directors meeting on March 30.
But since VP finance and services Toby Whitfield is the only executive member with signing rights currently in the country — president Muhammad Ali Jabbar is in Pakistan — it’s unlikely Hamid’s proposal will fly since Whitfield doesn’t believe the motion was valid.
Either way, the RSU will be encouraged to follow a set of guidelines set out by accounting firm Deloitte in their financial audit of the health and dental plan.
Here are some of the recommendations the accounting firm suggested that the RSU follow in future dealings:
Track and figure out what you owe
Any opt-out cheques that aren’t picked up go into the RSU bank account. But the RSU can’t figure out how much money they owe students in total because there’s no way of tracking the cheques. The RSU needs to record the value of any outstanding cheques still kicking around as of April 30, the end of their fiscal year. This should go back five years.
Make a separate reserve account
The plan’s reserve fund should be independent of the other bank accounts so it can be tracked. The health and dental plan reserve is used to cover any shortfall in case the RSU doesn’t get money when it normally does.
Stop spending money
In the past, health and dental plan reserve money was spent paying insurance premiums since that money didn’t come in from the university right away. Since that’s not the case anymore, the RSU needs a stronger budget to make sure reserve money isn’t covering other debts.
Give out those old cheques Call students from the past four years and tell them to pick up their opt-out cheques. If that doesn’t work, email them. After five years, the money belongs to the RSU. But it might work better to credit the opt-out money to our RAMSS accounts like other schools do.
Give out those new cheques
For the upcoming benefit year, the RSU can mail the cheques out. Or credit their value to RAMSS. The RSU can also call people and tell them to grab their cash. It’d be smart to add a condition stating that if the money isn’t claimed in a set period, it goes into the RSU’s coffers.
Track and report all claimed cheques
This seems simple enough.
Send ’em back home
The RSU should return any cheques that haven’t been picked up to Gallivan to keep track of things.
Undergo training
All directors should attend a Gallivan workshop to train for their new duties under outlines set out by the audit.
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