VP Finance and Operations
Zacheriah Houston
With the splitting up of the VP Finance and Operations portfolio next year, Zacheriah Houston has been working on overhauling the relevant internal regulations. He has successfully developed new internal regulations wherein funding can only be allocated by the funding committee and groups can now apply for funding through said committee.
Restructuring the funding committee has also been a major success for Houston. He told The Daily the funding application forms have been revamped: instead of asking for cover letters, the funding committee asks very specific questions with word limits on the answers. Furthermore, the applications have been moved completely online. In turn, this has significantly reduced meeting times for the committee, making the volunteers more engaged and the process a lot faster.
Houston also noted that one of his biggest successes was supporting SSMU Services, remarking that he has a meaningful understanding of the activities of each one, which allows him to be a better resource.
One of the difficulties Houston faced was committing enough time and attention to the operations aspect of his portfolio. He admitted that he was more involved with the SSMU budget instead of finding solutions for the Student Run Cafe’s deficit. “I take this quite seriously, I am disappointed with this,” he told The Daily.
This past year has seen a large number of fees that were passed or renewed. Houston noted that “it took a lot of time, but a lot of really good positive fees passed,” citing the renewal of the equity fee, and mental health fee, among others. While the referendum question to increase the SSMU membership fee did not pass, Houston emphasized that a lot of work went into calculating the proposed fee increase of $5.50, which has helped him acquire a thorough understanding of SSMU’S budget. Houston claims that SSMU became unsustainable financially because previous VP Finances and Operations focused too much on the shortterm, but he has taken the long-term seriously, not only to balance the budget, but to develop a sustainable future plan.