Last night, AMS Council met to create a new executive oversight committee and discussed food security services on campus.
Here’s what you might have missed.
Creation of Executive Performance and Accountability Committee
Several code changes on executive accountability passed following a presentation by AMS President Eshana Bhangu. The first creates an Executive Performance and Accountability Committee.
The Executive Performance and Accountability Committee will be composed of seven members which would include non-executive chairs of standing committees and non-executive members of Council. The Speaker of Council will serve as the committee chair.
According to Bhangu, the committee will be responsible for seeking and presenting feedback on AMS executives. This feedback also includes any significant concerns brought to the committee from the society's membership regarding members of the executive.
Bhangu added that the committee will also have the power to bring motions to remove a member of the executive and make recommendations to take disciplinary measures and develop performance improvement plans.
Bhangu said the committee would not be like the former Oversight Committee which used to have an “extremely toxic bonus system” and was “a little too political.”
She said there will also be a formal mechanism to gather feedback from permanent staff, students and other members of the AMS regarding the executives.
The executives' goals policy was also amended to make sure that every goal was directly related to campaign promises and had timelines associated with them to indicate when they would be completed.
Additionally, the members of the executive would now have to present an update to the council to discuss the progress made by them on their goals.
When asked how the AMS kept track of executives’ goals, Bhangu said they had a level of trust in the elected executives and that the Council could ask the executives for the contents of their campaign websites.
“There is coverage done by The Ubyssey. There’s a lot of public records [and] social media posts,” she added.
In response to a question on how executives could change their goals, Engineering Councillor Kyle said executives should be held accountable for goals they set that are unfeasible.
“If the goals are based on their campaign promises, and they're changing their goals, then they're backing away from campaign promises. And I think that students kind of deserve to be able to see it,” he said.
Cut in services of the AMS Food Bank to UBC staff
At the Council meeting, Bhangu said the AMS will cut the services of the AMS Food Bank to UBC staff because of the unsustainable funds required to run the food bank.
The AMS is requesting $350,000 for the food bank from UBC, but Bhangu said that would not be enough to maintain service since the cost of running the food bank is close to $500,000.
“The idea is to direct UBC staff towards the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. To be very frank, they're far more able and likely to go to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank as opposed to students,” she added when asked where staff members could go instead.
When asked what the AMS was doing to help the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) to help with their new food hub, Senior Manager Student Services Manager Kathleen Simpson said she was not aware of this initiative but would like to speak with the AUS about the logistics and the AMS's knowledge of running a food bank.
However, she said food security programs are very challenging and financially intensive and can quickly spiral to become labour-intensive as well.
AMS VP Finance Lawrence Liu said the AUS food hub was a great idea and saw the potential for a collaboration between the AMS VP finance office and the AUS, but echoed Simpson's logistical concerns.
Bhangu agreed with Simpson and Liu, but said she made efforts to discourage the AUS to open a food hub because of logistical reasons. She said, “It doesn't really make sense to have each constituency open up a food hub” and was unsure how effective it would be.