ASI Board of Directors unanimously voted to endorse a 2024 – 2029 strategic plan. The plan, which includes four major goals, highlights ASI’s intention to increase transparency and understanding throughout the Cal Poly community.
The ASI Board of Directors is an entirely student-run and operated governing body with student representatives from each college that are elected for one-year terms each spring. Their new strategic plan lists Goal 4 which intends to strengthen trust with the community they represent.
“We’re trying to break down our operating budget and put it forward, put it on our website in a graphical way or in or in a more understandable way, not just something that an accountant sitting in a backroom can understand,” Chair of the ASI Board of Directors Siddharth Kartha said.
ASI’s budget is entirely funded through mandatory student fees each academic quarter. This quarter, the fee totaled $416.19. The ASI-specific fee managed by the ASI Board of Directors gets allocated $126.49 of that. The board of directors funds ASI club services, ASI club funding, Orfalea Family and ASI Children’s Center, ASI Student Government, ASI Poly Escapes and ASI events.
The other portion of the fee, $289.70, is the University Union Fee. These funds are managed by the University Union Advisory Board and fund ASI-Managed Facilities (Julian A. McPhee University Union, Cal Poly Recreation Center, Cal Poly Sports Complex and Doerr Family Field) and ASI Programs (ASI Craft Center, ASI Intramural Sports, fitness classes and aquatics).
“Currently, we have our audited financial statements that are approved, available on our website,” Kartha said. “These provide an in-depth look into the technicalities of our finances, but they’re not the most comprehensible or understandable to most people.”
Kartha said he hopes to have a more widely accessible version of the budget posted publicly in the near future. ASI President Samuel Andrews said they are pleased with the new strategic plan and that it feels attainable to accomplish the goals.
“I feel extremely proud and cautiously optimistic,” Andrews said. “We’re starting in a hard place following the pandemic in a few different areas, but we have set some major goals that I genuinely think we can achieve given the way our operations are moving.”
With no strict structure or starting outline, strategic plans can be difficult to create, but Andrews feels ASI has created a document that is specific, easy to understand and implementable throughout student government at Cal Poly.
