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Saturday, August 1, 2020

Buried Lede on ASUCLA?

The Bruin has an article about ASUCLA's taking a federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan to preserve employment. It is not surprising that the organization is losing money in the current situation with courses online and relatively few people (and thus customers) on campus. However, the article - buried in the text - indicates that before the coronavirus crisis, ASUCLA was also losing money. Excerpt below:

Associated Students UCLA received a $4.7 million loan from the federal government, but still faces millions of dollars in lost revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASUCLA executives said. ASUCLA received the loan under the Paycheck Protection Program, which is run by the United States Small Business Administration to encourage small businesses to keep workers employed during the pandemic.

ASUCLA lost millions of dollars in revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Michelle Moyer, the director of Business Affairs and Compliance for ASUCLA, in an emailed statement. As students transitioned to online classes and employees started working remotely in March, ASUCLA lost several of their primary sources of income, including sales from campus stores, events scheduled at Ackerman Union and the licensing of commercial products with the UCLA name, Moyer said.

Moyer said in May, ASUCLA faced a year-to-date net loss of $5.7 million. By June, ASUCLA expects their year-to-date income to be $14 million less than that of the 2018-2019 fiscal year, Moyer added.

Siena Villegas, a student representative on the ASUCLA Board of Directors, said ASUCLA expects to run a year-to-date deficit of $17.6 million at the end of July, $14 million more than that of the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
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Comment: $17.6 million - $14 million = loss of $3.6 million during the pre-coronavirus 2018-19 fiscal year.
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ASUCLA will be able to continue paying employees with using the PPP loan, said Noe Garcia, the USAC financial supports commissioner. He added that ASUCLA is unsure how long it can continue paying its employees since most ASUCLA services will not resume operations in the fall...

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