Meet Joshua Deonarine, AUSA Financial VP

This week, I had the opportunity to talk with Joshua Deonarine (senior, finance) regarding his responsibilities and experience during his second year of working as the Financial Vice President of AUSA.

Hi, Joshua! Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Could you please briefly introduce yourself, and what your role as an AUSA Financial Vice President entails?

Yeah, for sure. What I currently do for AUSA as a Financial Vice President is basically to manage the budget and the payroll. That requires me to double check our expenses and make sure that the AUSA team, officers, and the senate have enough money to plan their events and side projects. Some examples of these projects would include spirit grants or Christmas tree decoration like we did last year.

So each officer has their own budget?

Sort of. The amount of budget varies depending on the officer’s role. The Social Vice President would be allotted the biggest amount of funds just because they assume responsibility over major events like the banquets. The officers would receive the money that would cover the cost of equipment, resources, planning, and anything else that comes in the way, so how much money we get for our jobs really depends on our role. Some officers like the secretary would not receive any money as their role does not require it.

Interesting! And I know you have been pursuing this role since last year. May I know what was your initial motivation when applying for this position, and whether your visions or goals changed throughout the years?

I joined the team initially to better understand how money works in a school system. I had several internships and work experiences with other companies, financial services, and consulting, but I was not very exposed to the school system, so I wanted to see how it functioned differently compared to the other types of organizations I worked for and gather as much experience as possible. I think I accomplished that over the years, and my primary goal for the team remained relatively static: making sure each officer is satisfied with the money they have to devote and use to get their projects covered, and thus guarantee satisfactory experiences for the Andrews students and community.

That’s awesome—and the experience I had with the AUSA events this semester and last year were beyond satisfactory, so thank you for your work! I bet that there are more coming up, since we still have a few months left in the fall semester, and spring is yet to come. What is your vision concerning the student body during the remaining time of this school year? Is there something special you, or the team, are planning to do?

As mentioned, my goal is pretty static: making sure everyone has enough budget. I think I have more responsibilities this year, since I was not in charge of the payroll, but I am this year. I have been trying to add on as many responsibilities as possible for this position so that we can manage the money better. The thing about money is that it becomes more difficult to handle as an organization grows.  So my goal is to make sure that handling goes as well as possible while assisting people to get their projects accomplished. The more centralized the effort becomes, the easier I believe it would be to handle the money, since you don’t have to go everywhere to ask for help but simply go to the FVP.
Event wise, the biggest ones the team is planning at the moment are probably the barn party and the banquet. Barn party is going to happen on October 29, and the banquet will happen next semester, but for now, I am really looking forward to the barn party. I am pretty excited since I missed this party my freshman year, and I think it’s going to be really fun.

What are your favorite parts of the job and the least favorite parts of the job?

I think I enjoy the planning aspect and hanging out with the officers to chill out. Going to every event can be stressful at times since there are a lot of events, and every officer is required to go to all of them, on top of going to the meetings. These occasions can pile up to your schedule, but I mean, I don’t see any major downsides of being a part of AUSA since you are gaining a lot of valuable experience.

What are some of the most memorable or meaningful moments you had from being a part of AUSA?

The talent show last year was really interesting, and my favorite event so far since I like shows such as America’s Got Talent. Watching people perform on stage was very entertaining and fun for me. It was nice that I was able to help people set up their performance, and I think that was probably one of the most significant experiences I had while being a part of the team. And also, just generally being part of a team. Although the meetings are stressful at times due to schedule and time management, I find it important to participate, as I can bring up issues present on campus so that we can talk about it and share our different perspectives. So yes, having meetings is very valuable in the sense that we can have relevant conversations.

Since this is your last year at Andrews, could you provide some pieces of advice of what qualities you believe a Financial Vice President should have?

One change that I’m trying to propose to the team for the process of electing the new Financial Vice President is making a recommendation system, instead of voting them in. So if I recommend someone, the President would be approving my recommendation. I see the need to do this because in the past, we have always had an issue with training. The previous Financial Vice President trained me, and yes, we spent some time together to learn about this job, but there is only so much time you can set aside at the end of the year since everyone has a busy schedule. I probably received maybe a couple days of actual training, and I don’t think that should become the case for future candidates.
What I'm trying to do for next semester is to create an internship program that would function like a mentor-mentee program. I'll basically be guiding them throughout the entire semester, so that they can take over the role entirely from the summer without much confusion.
But regardless of whether the proposal is accepted or not, the most important quality that the candidate should have is familiarity with numbers. They have to make sure all the numbers are figured out, because you can't run any of the events without proper budget planning. Considering that each event costs at least $1,000 at the very minimum and just adds on from there, it is important that the individual is competent in this area, thus the reason why a business or finance major fits this role best. That’s a core reason why I see the need for recommendation and an early internship program—this job can become much easier if the candidate has competency and experience. Having some internship or work experience in accounting or auditing would also help a lot as that experience really helped me to adjust quickly to my current role. Being open minded would help a lot too.