No new equipment for Skaptopara 1 gym

 

Last semester's promised new fitness equipment for Skaptopara 1 gym will not be delivered. "There has been some miscommunication between [Dean of Students] Lydia Krise and [Athletic Director] Yasen Nedelchev as the $30,000 was never available," AUBG Vice President (VP) for Finance and Administration Alexander Alexandrov said.

The $30,000 for new equipment was supposed to come from the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA), Nedelchev said. "AUBG never ordered the equipment as it was not part of the budget for the year. As for the ASHA donation, it was for Skaptopara 3 exclusively, and not for gym equipment in general," Krise said.

"The AUBG purchasing office that deals with money transfers and procedures cancelled the order due to a higher administration decision," Nedelchev said. The new equipment would have been installed in Skaptopara 1 but the contract demanded it to be placed in Skaptopara 3, he explained. According to the Skaptopara 3 plans, a fitness room will be located in Block B, which has not been built yet.

"Nobody asked me about anything," Nedelchev said. "When I checked the status of the order online, I saw it was cancelled."

The original plan was to acquire, "the highest class professional fitness equipment possible" for the Skaptopara 1 gym, Nedelchev recalled. The money was to be used for buying new Skaptopara 1 gym equipment, the working equipment from Skaptopara 1 was to be transferred to Skaptopara 2 and the equipment from Skaptopara 2 sold, if possible.

"The sports activities are funded by the student activity fee. There was a proposal by me and Provost Ferren to increase the student activities fee not by $10 but by $20 which is $10,000 more," Alexandrov said. "The proposal wasn't accepted by the Student Financial Affairs Committee and the Budget Committee and we increased the fee only as planned which [...] will limit our ability during the budget process to do much more in terms of sports activities, student travel funds and others," Alexandrov added.

"I know students complain about the equipment, but I cannot do anything about it right now. I hope we get some money from the university budget for the sport facilities, so that we can buy something new," Nedelchev said.

"There are no plans for Skaptopara 1 gym for this fiscal year. The budget [planning] starts in two weeks," Alexandrov said.

Students who want to see additional funding for gym equipment for the next fiscal year "should recommend it to the Student Government and Student Government should then recommend it to the student representatives of the Budgetary Committee," Krise said.