Midway through the semester, almost all of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association's co-ops are over their budgets. OSCA, Oberlin's non-profit eating and living corporation, earns an income of roughly $2 million a year from student room and board bills.
To create a yearly food budget, OSCA's student finance committee considers budgeting history, as well as needs specific to the current academic year. This year the committee examined possible problems presented by Y2K, planning to stock a surplus of food for second semester.
Senior all-OSCA Treasurer Marian Potter explained the difficulty of having to determine how much to spend on food on a weekly basis. "When we write the budget, each co-op receives an allocation based on the number of members. This becomes difficult because the actual number of members in each co-op is constantly changing," she said. Currently each of Oberlin's co-ops has spent more money than was originally allocated to them.
Potter stresses that the overbudgetting issue should not be perceived as a serious problem. "Co-ops commonly spend more at the beginning of the semester to purchase necessities like trash bags," she said. Potter expects the co-ops have reached the point in the year when they financially dip under the budget or begin to break even.
Moreover, Potter knows by examining co-op history that no serious detriments will result from exceeding their budgets. "There can be relatively small effects like no bagels for a week - but bagels are a luxury. A lot of what co-ops buy are luxuries."
Potter asserted that the advantage of co-ops lies in their relatively low cost compared to the Campus Dining Service. "OSCA's goal in writing the budget is to ensure that students pay a reasonable amount of money. We're extremely on top of it."
In fact, Potter and the OSCA finance committee expect co-ops to exceed the budget, and to plan accordingly. "We need to plan for things like short-term vacancies. How much a co-op spends really depends on the wants and needs of the members," said Potter.
Although each co-op is currently over budget, OSCA's finance committee meets regularly to discuss proposals and other matters concerning their financial status. Potter denies any notion that the co-ops are struggling financially, and said, "It's really hard to keep track of all of their finances, but I think we do it well."
Copyright © 1999, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 128, Number 9, November 12, 1999
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