The budget for Associated Students Inc. is at a midyear revenue surplus of $600,000 after several consecutive years of struggling with a deficit.

James Shelby II, ASI vice president of finance, presented the latest budget projections at the March 2 board meeting, that showed increasing revenues among ASI programs over the last two to three years.

Shelby described the current financial situation as that for every dollar ASI spends, they get a $1.70 back in revenues.

“About four years ago we were pretty bad, operating in the red,” Shelby said.

Randy Morgan, director of finance and administration, elaborated on the situation.”We’ve got the monkey off our back,” Morgan told the board.

Morgan joined ASI as a finance specialist in 2002. To describe the situation he walked into as difficult would be an understatement.

“It was atrocious. I walked in and said, ‘Shut the doors,” Morgan said half-jokingly.

“When I came on board, ASI was in such bad shape that we had about 40 cents of assets for every dollar we spent,” Morgan said.

To get an idea of the magnitude of the problem, ASI’s net assets at the start of the fiscal year were at $155,535.

By the end of the year net assets had improved to $890,743.

Morgan pointed to spending cuts across the board for all ASI’s ventures as the reason behind the turnaround.

Shelby credits Peak Adventures, the ASI business office, the Aquatic Center, and the Children’s Center for managing their operations efficiently to help close the budget gap.

Jael Young, director of Peak Adventures, said she was forced to cut three positions to help fix the situation.

The assistant director was one full-time with benefits position that was slashed. Also, Young decided to drop another full-time position responsible for managing the bike shop.A part-time equipment manager position was also a victim.

Young adds that Peak Adventures’ biggest casualty has been the cut in its marketing operations. That in turn has hurt business.

“We’ve cancelled a lot of trips due to the lack of awareness because we couldn’t market,” Young said.

As Morgan puts it: “Peak had to reassess their priorities to realign their business model.”

ASI President Josh Wood is pleased at the budget outlook. Wood credits Peak Adventures in particular as helping to heal the budget by significantly changing their staff”Last year Peak suffered serious cuts because we had no budget to work with,” Wood said. “Cutting down on staff at Peak really helped.”

As for the Aquatic and Children’s Centers, Morgan said these two major ASI programs didn’t have to change much in their operations to help the budget, since they benefit from grants.

The Aquatic Center’s programs, like youth camps and personal watercraft activities, have also brought in significant revenue to help, Morgan said.

Greg Hyatt can be reched at [email protected]