The Associated Students Judicial Council filed an injunction placing a hold on the Association’s 2024 budget deliberations, the council announced in an April 29 email. This decision follows Associated Students President Tessa Veksler allegedly violating Associated Students Legal Code by recommending the reallocation of the Associated Students Program Board rollover funds to the Finance and Business Committee.
The Associated Students (A.S.) Judicial Council unanimously voted to file the injunction after A.S. Program Board (ASPB) Commissioner Kathryn Supple filed a petition with the judicial council, alleging Veksler’s legal code violations. The vote took place at a preliminary hearing in fourth-year communication and philosophy double major Supple’s case against Veksler.
ASPB is an entity within A.S. that plans concerts, screenings and other entertainment events for the UCSB student body.
The Judicial Council sent a Notice of Injunction on A.S. budget deliberations in an association-wide email on April 29, citing two instances of A.S. Legal Code that Veksler allegedly violated.
A.S. Legal Code states that members of ASPB are to “act as primary board of approval for all Program Board events and expenditures” and that “all financial expenditures must be approved by a majority (50%+1) of the voting membership of Program Board.”
“The case in question alleges that President Tessa Veksler violated Article XII §3(E)(13) and §3(F)(7) of the A.S. By-Laws,” the Notice of Injunction read. “The former section states that AS Program Board acts as the primary board of approvals regarding all events and expenditures pertaining to the program. The latter section states that all ‘financial expenditures must be approved by a majority (50%+1) of the voting membership of Program Board’.”
The Judicial Council sent a follow-up email on May 1.
“The purpose of an injunction is to maintain the status quo and prevent irreparable damage; in this case the Judicial Council has deemed it necessary to potentially delay budget deliberations in order to protect the legal integrity of the budget and deliberation process,” the email read. “The injunction applies to the respondent (the President) and bars her from taking further action in budget deliberation. This may affect the Senate by proxy but does not by any means limit the free speech of the senators.”
ASPB, like other A.S. entities, is funded through student lock-in fees, which are voted on and reaffirmed every two years. Rollover funding results from entities not spending the entirety of their budget: money that is not spent in a given year rolls over to the next year.
ASPB currently has $2.5 million in funding from rollover, according to Supple.
Veksler, a fourth-year political science and communication double major, did not immediately respond to the Nexus’ request for comment.
Supple said in her Judicial Council petition that Veksler initially planned to recommend that 80% of ASPB’s rollover funds be allocated to the A.S. Finance and Business Committee (F&B) and redistributed to other A.S. Boards, Committees and Units (BCUs), breaching legal code from attempting to distribute any amount of ASPB’s rollover funds.
Supple said that Veksler has since revised her recommendation to only allocate 20% of ASPB’s rollover this year and discuss how to allocate the other 80% to be discussed during the next year.
“In her recommendation for the 2024-2025 Associated Students’ Budget, President Veksler has recommended allocating money from AS Program Board’s rollover,” Supple said in her judicial council petition. “This is in violation of legal code and ballot language. ASPB is funded through lock-in fees that are voted on and reaffirmed every 2 years, and creates a contract between the students and ASPB. These campus base fees go specifically to ASPB to fulfill ASPB’s mission statement and are to be used for events.”
“President Veksler’s recommendation violates this contract by allocating money to F&B to allocate to various BCUs,” Supple continued in the petition. “ASPB’s funds are restricted funds and to be used by ASPB as decided by the student body.”
Supple said in an interview with the Nexus that Veksler first notified Program Board of her budget recommendation during the ASPB Public Forum on April 15.
“Our first reaction as a board was shock, because it was something that we were not aware of and something that we hadn’t heard of prior to that Monday,” Supple said.
Following the meeting, Supple sent an association-wide email that outlined what Veksler proposed during ASPB’s Public Forum and communicated ASPB’s discontent with Veksler’s plan.
Veksler responded to the email clarifying the details of her proposal. She stated that allocating ASPB rollover funds to other BCUs would allow the money to be “used to benefit the entire association after sitting dormant for nearly a decade.”
“Please understand that it is my job to allocate the budget in a way that best serves the entire Association, without benefiting one single unit,” Veksler said in the email. “We need to be equitable while also of course respecting ASPB’s desire to continue its mission.”
Veksler sent another Association-wide email on May 1 — addressed to each A.S. Senator’s email address — stating that, despite the injunction halting budget deliberations, she intends to bring her budget recommendation to the Senate.
“I am bound by the A.S. Constitution to submit the final budget (President’s recommendation) to the Senate for their debate, potential amendment, and ratification,” the email said.
Veksler also said in the email that she “stands by” her initial recommendation to reallocate ASPB’s rollover funding.
“I stand by the idea that reallocating this collected rollover throughout the Association is for the benefit of all and is compliant with the legal code,” Veksler said. “I believe students would be upset to know we have not spent this money – rollover should never be relied upon or accumulated to this degree.”
Supple emphasized that the rollover amount is irrelevant in her judicial case against Veksler since her petition focuses on alleging that Veksler’s budget recommendation violates legal code.
“I really want to emphasize the fact that it is not about the money. This is about the process,” Supple said.
Supple acknowledged the size of ASPB’s rollover and said that the board is currently working on a plan to utilize the extra funds.
“A.S. Program Board acknowledges that our rollover has gotten large, but we are also working on creating a plan to spend down on rollover,” Supple said. “It’s really important to us as a board to make sure that we’re using the money with the students in mind — and in accordance with legal code — to make sure that it’s a sustainable solution.”
Supple also said that ASPB has previously co-sponsored events with other BCUs and will continue to do so, which Supple said is a “far better solution to this issue” than solely reallocating rollover funds to BCUs.
“We as a board have the capacity to co-sponsor a lot of events, and that would really build the campus community and increase collaboration within the association,” Supple said. “Suggesting to allocate Program Board’s money to the Finance and Business Committee undermines the work that Program Board members do and the amount of events that have been co-sponsored in the past.”
The Judicial Council said in the May 1 email that it plans to hear Supple’s case on Monday, May 6, at 9:30 a.m.
“Judicial Council will be proceeding with this case as swiftly as the Judicial Process allows, to ensure that the Association may proceed with its business smoothly and without interruption,” the Notice of Injunction read.
The Nexus will continue reporting on this issue as more information becomes available.
A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the May 2, 2024, print edition of the Daily Nexus.
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The nexus should do a report on the amount of student dollars sitting in rollover accounts that haven’t been touched in years. It’s literally millions of dollars in student fees trapped in 2-3 person organizations that effectively throw pizza parties once per year. When was the last Take Back the Night Event? Because they get hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and as a lock-in organization it’s nearly impossible to reclaim those funds. The ASPB actually does cool shit with their money (they also collect the most money per capita). Way too many lock-in organizations that do nothing with… Read more »
TBTK is a good example of an org with noble intentions that is literally worthless. Website hasn’t been updated since 2018. Instagram hasn’t posted since 2020. I doubt anyone even knows the password at this point. There are a dozen or more orgs in the same boat within AS UCSB.
https://tbtn.as.ucsb.edu/about-us/