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The KSA’s latest financial figures reveal a troubling picture. According to the December 2024 draft budget, the student association ran a deficit of roughly $674,000 for the year. Multiple expense lines blew past their budgets, contributing to this shortfall.

Key examples include:

• Legal & Professional Fees: The KSA spent $382,051 on legal and professional services, exceeding the budgeted $230,000 by over $152,000​. In fact, the KSA’s legal expenses in 2024 alone were higher than its total legal spending from 2019 through 2022 combined​. This suggests extraordinary (and costly) legal matters occurring behind the scenes. Why? No transparency has ever been provided on this.
• Events: The student union spent $265,249 on events, overshooting the allotted $100,000 by $165,249. For instance, a single Welcome Week event in Sept 2024 cost over $31,000 – about $10,000 more than planned.

In short, 2024 saw the KSA overspend on lawyers and events while struggling to control costs in operations. These financial troubles drained reserves and led to the significant deficit now facing the student association​.

Council Votes Itself a Hefty Pay Hike

One would expect belt-tightening in a time of deficit. Instead, the KSA council (which includes the student executive board) chose to substantially increase their own salaries and meeting payments in March 2025. At a March 21 council meeting, with the 2024 audited financial statements on the table, the council approved a suite of pay raises for themselves​:

• Executive Committee Pay: Effective April 1, each KSA executive will be paid $24.03 per hour, up from a flat biweekly stipend of $1,592.80​. With executives expected to work 80–90 hours per two-week period, this means up to $2,162.70 biweekly, a 36% increase in pay (roughly $56,230 per year before perks)​. Do executives release details of exactly what they work on that justifies them to such pay? Of course they haven’t.
• “Associate President” Honorarium: The KSA’s Associate President (a position in the KSA governance structure that was simply made up in recent years) will now receive $12,000 per semester, up from $9,000 (which itself was set just last September)​. This is a 33% jump in less than a year.
• Meeting Honoraria: All KSA Council members – including non-executive representatives – will get more money for attending meetings. Honorarium for attending a council or committee meeting was raised from $100 to $125 per meeting (a 25% increase). Committee chairpersons now get $175 per meeting (up from $150), and even student-at-large committee reps saw their stipend double from $50 to $100​. Notably, these stipends had already been increased once on April 1, 2024; the council has now given itself another raise just one year later​. No transparency has been ever given on why our representatives deserve such steady increases.

In plain terms, the student fees that fund the KSA will now be paying significantly more into the pockets of the very people who control those funds. An executive on the KSA can now make over $56k/year from salary alone, not counting additional meeting payments and a tuition reimbursement perk for six credits per semester​.

There has never been any transparency given to exactly how much management such as Executive Director Timothii Ragavan and Student Services Manager Yakshit Shetty earn. Anytime those numbers are requested, an obfuscated release of a sum of staff expenses (which includes all staff) is provided. No breakdown of actual pay, nor benefits received has ever been provided to the students this organization is supposed to answer to.

The timing and optics of these raises are alarming. They were decided quietly at a meeting in late March, just weeks after the scale of the KSA’s financial deficit became public. Essentially, the KSA board awarded themselves pay increases on the order of 30–36% in the same breath that the organization is grappling with overspending and potential service cuts.

Opaque Decision-Making and No Real Justification

It’s not just the content of these decisions that is troubling – it’s how they were made. Transparency and accountability have been sorely lacking. Consider the following:

• Budget Kept Out of Sight: By KSA’s own regulations, the draft budget is supposed to be posted on the KSA website and shared with the KPU community at each campus for feedback well before being approved​. This is meant to ensure student input and oversight on how their money is spent. This did not happen. In fact, the 2025 budget was adopted on Dec. 27, 2024 without ever being posted for the membership. The KSA’s Financial Controller, Rolando Navarro, raised red flags about this lack of consultation, noting “no meaningful consultation” was done as required​.
• Ignoring Internal Warnings: Navarro – essentially the KSA’s accounting expert – warned the council in writing that the budget contained “concerning unresolved issues” and unrealistic projections. He highlighted major shortfalls: a projected $439,000 deficit in clubs and events, a $400,000 deficit in the bursary fund, and an overly optimistic revenue forecast for Grassroots Café despite an actual $100k loss that year​. He flatly stated that the operations budget wouldn’t balance if more “tenable assumptions” were used​. Navarro even pointed out inordinate spending on marketing “swag” – about $100k on promo items in 2024, including $26,000 worth of T-shirts sitting unsent in storage – money that could have gone to student services. The KSA council’s response? Silence. They moved forward and approved the budget without addressing these concerns at all.
• Closed-Door Discussions: Key financial discussions have been kept off the record. Navarro was invited to present his concerns at a Dec. 11 meeting, only to find the session moved in-camera (closed to observers) so his input never reached the membership​. Similarly, when the draft audited financial statements were presented on March 21, the council promptly went in-camera to review them, away from student scrutiny.
• No Answers to Students or Media: When pressed for justification for the pay hikes, KSA officials had no answers. During the March 21 meeting, the council refused to answer The Runner’s questions about why they were raising honoraria. Afterwards, the student journalists emailed follow-up questions to the lead architect of the pay raise (Councillor Jasmine Kaur Kochhar) and the KSA’s Executive Director Timothii Ragavan – neither responded. This mirrors a broader pattern: The Runner requested a copy of the budget during the Dec. 27 meeting, but the KSA Associate President who had shared it internally (Ishant Goyal — recently re-elected) did not provide it to the press or public. In multiple instances, those in charge have opted to stonewall rather than explain themselves to the students they represent.

In summary, the KSA board not only granted themselves generous raises in a time of deficit, but they did so without consulting students, against the advice of their own staff, and without offering any public justification. The lack of transparency – from failing to publish budgets, to holding private deliberations, to ignoring questions – suggests a student government that is not interested in accountability to its members.

Why This Matters to Every KPU Student

All KPU students pay into the KSA (through student fees collected each semester), so every student has a stake in how that money is managed. When hundreds of thousands of dollars are mismanaged or spent without oversight, students lose out. Money that could have funded clubs, improved services, or kept student-run businesses sustainable has instead been spent on questionable legal fights and overshot events budgets. Now, on top of that, a good chunk of the KSA’s budget will be redirected to fatter paycheques for the student executives themselves.

Students should also be concerned about the precedent this sets. If the KSA executives can quietly boost their own pay by 36% in the middle of a financial crisis, what’s to stop future councils from doing the same? The KSA exists to serve students – through advocacy, services, grants, events – not to serve as a lucrative part-time job for council members. Every dollar going to excessive stipends or wasted expenditures is a dollar not going to bursaries, improvements, or student support programs that directly benefit the student body.

Moreover, the governance issues here are serious. The KSA Board is supposed to operate democratically and transparently. Instead, they’ve skirted their own rules meant to keep students informed, shut down internal dissent, and kept students in the dark about decisions that affect everyone on campus. Such conduct erodes trust and undermines the integrity of student representation. If students don’t push back, the message to the KSA leadership is that they can act with impunity.

Call to Action – Demand Accountability from KSA and KPU

It’s clear that change is needed in how the KSA conducts itself – but that will only happen if students speak out. Here’s what you can do to demand accountability and transparency:

1. Write to the KSA directly: Email the KSA staff and leadership to voice your concerns. Let them know that you expect better stewardship of your fees and an explanation for these pay raises. You can reach the KSA at staff@kusa.ca (general staff) and ed@kusa.ca (Executive Director Timothii Ragavan). CC the KSA Council (council@kusa.ca) which includes all elected representatives. The more students raise these issues, the more this elected body must respond. They are here to serve us, the students, not themselves.

2. Escalate to KPU administration: KPU’s administration maintains a liaison with the KSA and has an interest in student welfare. You can contact Joshua Mitchell – Associate Vice President, Student Affairs at KPU – at Joshua.Mitchell@kpu.ca. Phone: 604-599-2474. As the AVP who works with student groups, he should hear that students are unhappy with how their money is being handled.

3. Contact the KPU Board of Governors: The University’s Board of Governors oversees broad interests at KPU, and while they don’t govern the KSA, they do have influence and should be made aware of serious student concerns. Email the board via boardofgovernors@kpu.ca to urge them to pay attention to the KSA’s activities and push for better accountability measures.

4. Attend Meetings & Ask Questions: The KSA Council meetings are open to students (often via Microsoft Teams) if you request access. Take advantage of this – attend meetings, ask tough questions, and insist that they be answered in the public record. The more students show up and scrutinize, the harder it is for decisions to be made in secrecy. (Email info@kusa.ca to get the meeting link, as per KSA’s notice.)

5. Get Involved or Vote: Ultimately, the KSA board is elected by students. If you feel strongly that the current representatives are not acting in your interests, make your voice heard at election time. Vote for candidates who pledge transparency and fiscal responsibility – or consider running for a position yourself in the future. The KSA only works if those in charge are accountable to the membership.

This is your money and your student experience on the line. A student association should operate in the sunshine, justify its decisions, and put students first – especially in tough financial times. The current KSA leadership’s choice to pad their own paychecks while running a deficit, and their refusal to justify it, is unacceptable. It’s up to students to hold them to account. Send those emails, show up, and demand that your student leaders start acting like true representatives of the KPU student body, not like a board of directors in it for themselves.

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— A Concerned KPU Student

Your words do carry weight. When used with intent, they can shift policies, spark dialogue, and protect what matters. 📩 Email KSA and KPU today.