Last night, AMS Council heard several presentations, ranging from how to address its growing backlog of club reimbursements to potential by-law changes that would alter the make-up of the governing body.
Here is what you might’ve missed.
Reimbursements for days
In November, the AMS transitioned to a new financial system — Microsoft Business Central — to address long-standing delays in reimbursing individuals and clubs.
However, the transition, along with personnel turnover in the AMS resulted in the AMS falling further behind on reimbursing clubs.
The AMS hired external consulting firm MNP to create a roadmap for addressing the reimbursement backlog, and reducing wait times.
Representative Peter Guo said MNP identified nine main issues with the AMS's current system, including inaccurate form usage, insufficient error handling procedures and inconsistent training.
Guo said the root of the problem was that the AMS lacked “proper governance” and that Council had inherited a troubled system. He also stressed the importance of the “continuity of knowledge” because of the large turnover of AMS executives and staff every year.
Going forward, Guo said the AMS should immediately standardize claim formats, fix all user errors and clear the existing backlog. To fix backlogging, Guo also said the AMS needed to shift from addressing claims on a first-come, first-served basis to prioritizing higher amount claims.
In an interview with The Ubyssey on January 18, VP Finance Lawrence Liu said the main purpose of hiring the external firm was to “stabilize the system,” adding that the system transition timeline was set before he took office.
He said the AMS hopes to accomplish this by February and then begin larger-scale changes, such as addressing the design and larger reported errors.
Posters making a comeback
Council also heard a presentation from Elections Administrator Max Holmes about the Elections Committee's goals for the upcoming AMS Elections in March.
Holmes said the Elections Committee is aiming for a 25 per cent voter turnout, which would be an 8 per cent increase from last year.
Holmes said the committee’s main goal is to increase engagement and awareness. This will be done by bringing back postering — which have been banned since 2020 due to high levels of campaign infractions — and including QR codes on election material to track engagement.
Holmes also said the committee plans to make elections more accessible for candidates by removing “unnecessary rules.” This would include not requiring candidates to report every endorsement they receive.
To improve transparency, the committee will publicly disclose their conflicts of interest.
Finally, Holmes said they are planning on changing the current voting system from Condorcet to instant run-off voting. In Condorcet, voters rank candidates from first to last choice. Then candidates are compared in a series of one-on-one matches. To win, a candidate needs to have won the most matches against their opponents.
Big board, big problems?
Bhangu ended the meeting by giving councillors an update on potential by-law changes the governance review committee has been working on in recent weeks.
The biggest change would be reducing the size of Council by eliminating some seats entirely and reallocating others based on constituency size. The new formula would not make seat numbers directly proportional to constituency size, prohibiting large constituencies from dominating Council. Bhangu explained that “smaller boards are more efficient,” and it would encourage engagement from councillors.
Members that could potentially be removed include audiology, journalism, library and information studies, planning, public health, and social work. Bhangu said she spoke to representatives from some of the schools and they expressed support for the change.
Affiliated institutions' seats would also become combined into one. Bhangu has only spoken to Regent College, but she said they also supported the change.
Another change would be that VPs would become non-voting members of Council.
Bhangu said the next time these changes are discussed in Council will be when councillors are voting to approve putting them on referendum ballots.
“The goal is to have more and better representation,” Bhangu said.