The Arts Undergraduate Society announced on Wednesday that Arts Frosh had taken in far less than what was needed to cover the event’s expenditures, resulting in a budget deficit of $30,105.

AUS Vice-President Finance Majd Al Khaldi spent more than an hour detailing how the event went so deeply into the red at AUS Council.

Much of the revenue shortfall, Al Khaldi said, stemmed from the fact that Nampande Londe, the vice-president in charge of organizing Arts Frosh, decided to raise the cap for attendance to 1,800 participants. More first years chose to register online this summer, which led Londe to believe that a high number would also register on campus in August.

Based on the higher cap, the AUS projected that Arts Frosh would take in $170,863. As the registration numbers in the days leading up to Frosh failed to meet projections, however, the AUS decided to open Frosh to all McGill students in an effort to register as many people as possible.

Nevertheless, this last-ditch effort failed to register many more students. About 1,482 students registered for Arts Frosh, and the event took in $137,637.

Members of AUS Council were made aware of the shortfall during the first week of term, but most of them did not see the budget until Wednesday.

“When I saw the budget, I was appalled,” said Amara Possian, an Arts senator who has been involved in Frosh for the past three years. “Some of the things they spent money on were absurd.”

Froshies, for example, have typically spent the last night of Arts Frosh at St. Sulpice, a popular bar on St. Denis Street, which hosted the event free of charge. This year, though, Londe paid to book the Just for Laughs Theatre.

After news of the loss broke in campus newspapers, Londe resigned her position as AUS VP events on September 14. She cited personal reasons in her decision to resign and is no longer a student at McGill.

Many of Frosh’s financial difficulties, Possian said, stemmed from Londe’s mismanagement. She added that councillors were ready to impeach her if she had not resigned.

Although Londe was not present at Wednesday’s meeting, councilors voiced concerns about how the event generated such a large shortfall.

“Raising the cap was the biggest problem they had, and I wasn’t aware of the extent to which that was going to have an effect on the deficit,” said Cathryn Supko, a representative to AUS Council from the Society of Undergraduate Math Students. “I was actually really fascinated by the fact that they did not spend as much as they anticipated, and there was still quite a significant deficit.”

Several councillors also questioned some of the event’s expenditures. The AUS originally budgeted $4,950 to pay its six Frosh coordinators, who assisted Londe in organizing the event. The AUS subsequently raised their total pay to $7,000, despite the fact that one of the coordinators quit midway through the summer.

“[The decision to raise the coordinator’s stipend] was made by the executive based on the fact that these coordinators had to pull out more work based on the fact that somewhere halfway through the summer the cap was raised,” Al Khaldi said. “They ended up planning an event for 1,800 students instead of 1,400, hence this raise.”

In addition, the budget presented by Al Khaldi showed that the AUS spent $5,505 on food for a barbeque on the second day of Frosh, though only $2,263 was budgeted for the meal. Al Khaldi attributed the overrun to Casey Adams, one of the Frosh coordinators, who failed to order the food from Provigo far enough in advance.

The AUS spent far more on Frosh this summer than in previous years. Total expenditures ran to $167,752 this year—about $46,000 more than last year.

According to Al Khaldi, Arts Frosh had budgeted to lose money on Frosh, but these projections showed the event losing $7,933.

Councillors also expressed concern that Al Khaldi was unable to be more involved in the Frosh planning process. Though Al Khaldi was not required to help plan Frosh or be in Montreal over the summer, councillors suggested that the future holders of Al Khaldi’s position might take a larger role in Frosh.

“I think that it would have been better to have the VP finance there [during Frosh planning] to look over the budget and work in conjunction with them the whole summer,” said Tim Apedaile, the president of the Political Science Students Association. “I think that’s a positive that’s come of this because I think they’re moving towards doing that.”