Woohoo the thread has been hijacked. now we can go on and on here with the presidential debate and loose site of the real issue.


back on track please. arguing about the presidential candidates won't make our current financial problem disappear. let's be pissed at the people who are currently ucking up instead of the people who will uck things up in the future.

Everyone keeps saying "VP Finance". Who is that? Is it one person?

Who's fault is this whole mess? In the end, wasn't ONE person responsible? Who is it?

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Everyone keeps saying "VP Finance". Who is that? Is it one person?

Who's fault is this whole mess? In the end, wasn't ONE person responsible? Who is it?

There is one VP Finance postition (they are a member of the BoD), but they serve a 12 month term...so there have been seven different ones now (six I know of for sure, not sure about before 2004) since the PST was paid properly

https://www.msumcmaster.ca/news/msuNews.htm >> Update from VP Finance, Andrew Caterine
https://www.msumcmaster.ca/studentGo...rdagenda. htm >> EB 09-21 Draft Minutes

nvm, my point was said above

I would also like to echo some comments

1. Read the EB minutes that have been posted by Bauman and Wright since we had an in depth discussion about who is responsible and why this happened

2. Yes you can recall the VP Finance but the VP Finance for this year is Andrew Caterine and this has been almost 7 years in the making so really recalling one BOD member for this incident is highly inappropriate. This is the problem with BOD positions. They are only a 12 month term and usually have almost 100% turnover in the next year so accountability is not seen until most are not in office

MSU is the most useless thing ever...i am an exec for my club and have had sooooooooo many problems with them in the past few months its unbelievable (esp. the club coordinator)...they are farrrrr from "professional"... and hearing this now im even more pissed

Hey look, again, Rohan is not an MSU employee yet knows the answers.

It was neglect by many people. Accounting staff, Business manager, every single VP Finance up till now (but seriously.. we're going to hold students accountable to know tax law??), THE AUDITORS.

Like, answers aren't going to come easy. The fact of the matter is, a lot of people missed it. I don't agree with Jeff that it's Caterine's fault at all. Not telling people between Nov 19th and now is one issue, but Caterine had ZERO to do with the lack of PST remittance

Originally Posted by deadpool

Hey look, again, Rohan is not an MSU employee yet knows the answers.

It was neglect by many people. Accounting staff, Business manager, every single VP Finance up till now (but seriously.. we're going to hold students accountable to know tax law??), THE AUDITORS.

Like, answers aren't going to come easy. The fact of the matter is, a lot of people missed it. I don't agree with Jeff that it's Caterine's fault at all. Not telling people between Nov 19th and now is one issue, but Caterine had ZERO to do with the lack of PST remittance

There's a big difference between knowing tax laws inside and out, and knowing that taxes have to be paid. A 12 year old knows about PST.

Edit: And yes, if someone is in charge of overseeing the receipt and disposition of student money, I would expect them to have some basic grounding in the relevant acts and statutes.

haaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaahahahhaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ahahahhahahahahahahhh haaaaaaaa







pathetic, but what else can you expect from the MSU

I agree with Rohan for the most part. I mean there are several people along the way that should have figured out this payment should have been made. However, for people to blame Andrew Caterine for this mistake is OUTRAGEOUS!!! That's like shooting the messenger and is completely not fair. There is no one that can really get any accountability about this other than the auditors. This is the only possible way some of this money can be recovered if at all.

Originally Posted by sniderj

There's a big difference between knowing tax laws inside and out, and knowing that taxes have to be paid. A 12 year old knows about PST.

Edit: And yes, if someone is in charge of overseeing the receipt and disposition of student money, I would expect them to have some basic grounding in the relevant acts and statutes.

Well, as I said for last year's VP Finance elections... $10 million company... 3 person accounting team.

I would agree with Rohan that the ENTIRE blame can't just simply fall on Andrew Caterine.

Having said that I am still shocked that this document of notice came out November 19th. The EB wasn't told till middle of January of what exactly is going on with PST(They just got periodic updates from Business manager John Mcgowan saying stuff like "the pst audit is still going on" etc) and ditto with SRA being told only at our last meeting. But I was more concerned by the indirect refusal of Mr Caterine to answer questions about the PST issue to an SRA rep who straight up asked "So what should I tell to my constituents if they ask me?" and was told something along the lines of tell them to come to my office(Someone please correct me if my recollection is wrong and I apologize if it is).

But that just ties into my overall beef with MSU in general about communication(As a loose term that has alot of things under its umbrella) epic fails over and over. We have a $150,000+ PR department, but maybe people don't see this as a major incident of bad PR hence that department never gets involved. Atleast that's what I was told by a member of the BOD at the last SRA meeting when I asked them whether the PR department can try and contain and present this situation properly as compared to speculating students and SRA members, instead I was told it is the SRA's job and the ball was passed onto our side of the court without enough information from the MSU(Via email for example) to help us inform students. I have the VP finance's report(published Thursday AFTER the SRA meeting, lax of 4 days) but I personally usually refuse to take anything by anyone on face value, I always appreciate other perspectives; but that's just the social scientist in me(And in this case the other perspectives sometimes seem to contradict the VP finance situation). But I'll hopefully solve that tomorrow.

We also have a new 15 hours a week student PR assistant(Starting September 09) who works under the Student Life Development Co-Ordinator, but I have never seen any tangible improvements that I was promised after my ranting days of Summer 09 regarding the Speaker Resignation/1280 Issue Communication Fails. Same with Mr Matt Wright's(SRA Engineering) delegation two meetings ago on communications.

Is the VP Finance a student? If so, does anyone else feel that the position in charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars should be a professional and they should hold office for more than 12 months? I don't think a student should have that kind of responsibility.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

Is the VP Finance a student? If so, does anyone else feel that the position in charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars should be a professional and they should hold office for more than 12 months? I don't think a student should have that kind of responsibility.

That makes sense but on the flip side destroys all semblance of MSU being a "student" union that provides students with experiences. We can similarly give away UM, Shortstop,Undercovers and all other revenue based services to professionals as well, maybe they might even do a better job?

But on the other hand we have 1280 with 3 full time non student well paid staff members & a very experienced manager and we all know how that is doing!