GISA Autumn Budget Constrained by Institute Direction and Past Board ‘Failures’

By Ellie Winslow and Sine Schei

On November 2nd, the GISA Executive Committee convened their autumn General Assembly, with the main agenda item being this autumn’s Initiatives budget. GISA President, Samuel Pennifold, opened the GA by discussing the accomplishments of the GISA board up to this point and their goals for the rest of the 2023-2024 academic year. He followed this by introducing the autumn Initiatives budget and communicating two reasons for GISA’s financial difficulties this semester. First, the Institute Finance Department decided to change the structure of funding for GISA. Second, the President recognized the “failures” of the previous GISA board to appropriately manage the GISA finances in a way that would support future IHEID students. These two factors contribute to why some GISA Initiatives are receiving smaller budgets this semester.

As opposed to the previous two semesters, GISA was allocated a smaller budget by the Graduate Institute Finance Department. In Spring 2023, Initiatives were allocated 16,825 CHF and in Fall 2022, Initiatives were allocated 15,007 CHF. This semester, Initiatives are receiving a total of 13,650 CHF. GISA Executive Committee members met with Institute Financial Director, Eric Severac, who said the Institute was not willing to alter the current funding model, which currently provides 30 CHF per student at IHEID, split between the autumn and spring semesters. In this conversation, GISA Treasurer, Sameeksha Matta, suggested that GISA should be allotted 40 CHF per student, representing a 5 CHF per semester increase. This appeal was immediately rejected. According to President Pennifold, “inflationary pressures were discussed within the context of our (rejected) demands for a higher budget from the Institute, where we highlighted the increase in activity level and higher costs for initiatives to host events.” 

Furthermore, it was discussed in these meetings with the IHEID Finance Department that even though there are 1092 IHEID students enrolled at the Institute, GISA will only receive funding for 1000. The reason for excluding 92 students in the money allocation was due to student extensions, such as medical leave. Thus, the budget for the GISA Executive Committee and the Initiatives is 15,000 CHF for the autumn semester. If all students enrolled would have been accounted for, this number would have been 16,380 CHF. It remains unclear for what exact reason some enrolled students are not accounted for in the allocation to GISA, with a key question being whether money is allocated for visiting exchange students. Additionally, GISA uses a portion of the apportioned money for their expenses. GISA’s expenses include the annual graduation party, which currently has minimal funds set aside.

One glaring error that stood out to the GISA Treasurer as she was devising the budget was a missing amount of roughly 2,280 CHF in the GISA Executive Committee funds. Within the 2022-2023 GISA budget sheet, a record was made of an 1120 CHF cash deposit. However, there is no such record of the deposit in the GISA bank account. Despite searching through nearly two years of GISA post-financing account records, there is no documentation of this money being returned. In addition, there were multiple debits and other double reimbursements made on the GISA debit card that were not listed on the previous board’s expenditures. The record of these debits made on the GISA card appears on the GISA post-finance account statements, but receipts were not submitted and a reason for these payments was not listed. In addition, Matta described how the previous board made more generous purchases for their use, particularly for internal board meetings. The current board has reached out to the previous GISA President and GISA Treasurer for more information on the holes in the budget, but has only been advised to “recheck their work.” The current GISA President and Treasurer reported the missing money to the Institute Finance Director, Eric Severac, but this was met with minimal interest.

The Graduate Press asked Matta why the GISA Executive Committee would not take more significant actions against the previous board for their lack of transparency with these missing funds. Matta answered with a few reasons. First, as GISA is independent of the Graduate Institute, she feels a responsibility to remedy this issue internally by tightening the GISA Executive Committee budget. The current GISA board has had to cut certain expenses for their personal use, such as providing snacks at Town Halls and General Assemblies because the previous board did not leave funds for their successors. Second, she doesn’t want to distract from the work that GISA is currently doing to support students. Lastly, she said that she doesn’t want GISA to become entwined with legal issues that would deter students from running for GISA in the future.

Given the Institute’s decision to provide less money to GISA this semester, and overspending by the GISA Board under the previous president, some Initiatives are left with smaller budgets than usual. This makes it challenging for Initiatives to deliver on events that are important to them, like alumni interviews, panel discussions, salsa lessons, hiking excursions, and theme parties, compared to previous semesters. As Initiatives argued about receiving smaller budgets than previous semesters in this autumn’s General Assembly, the Treasurer cited outstanding expenses, previous fines, and a lack of previous budget fulfillment as reasons that she could not allocate more money to some initiatives. To make up for the smaller budgets, the current GISA board has made promises to aid in fundraising that would support the Initiatives in the fall semester.

The Graduate Press reached out to GISA President Sam Pennifold for a comment about the constraints on the GISA autumn budget and what the GISA Executive Committee plans to do to solve these issues:

“Institutional failures of the previous Executive Committee, combined with the confusing and disappointing decision by the Institute to change its policy regarding funding for GISA, as well as the decision to not offer any further financial assistance to GISA, have left the current Executive Committee facing a serious financial shortfall this semester. As such, many Initiatives have seen a reduction in their budget. This is always a difficult choice, but it is imperative to the Executive Committee that we improve the financial health of GISA; otherwise, this financial shortfall will only worsen. We are now taking all possible steps to remedy this situation for the next semester, including clarifying our internal and external budget processes, hosting fundraising efforts, offering increased administrative support and resources to initiatives, and implementing stringent cuts to the GISA operational budget.”

The Autumn General Assembly of the GISA Executive Committee shed light on significant challenges facing the organization in the current academic year. The Autumn GISA budget revealed a reduction in funding, attributed partly to changes in the Institute’s funding structure and acknowledged shortcomings in financial management by the previous GISA board. While the current GISA Executive Committee has committed to supporting the betterment of the IHEID student community, there is an inherent expectation that steps will be taken to bolster transparency and accountability of GISA’s financial practices in the coming months.