I think it is Tech to CUSA

I found the La Tech athletic department financial statement for the same year as the Utep one (2002-2003): http://www.lla.state.la.us/fc/ltuncaa03.pdf

Total Revenues: 8,000,003
Total Expenditures: 7,914,904
Difference: 85,099

I'm still trying to find a line by line for Utep that is similar to La Tech's. Interesting that the wac sharing is worth 633k. Anyway, if you believe both these reports (and you would think they're both true seeing as how they're filed with the state) Utep does in fact have a significantly larger budget than La tech, a 2.5 million dollar difference, ~25%.

Taking it further, since the La tech is line by line you can see that a total of 4,139,018 (not even counting the wac contribution of 633k that utep does not list in the revenue section of their report) comes from places outside of the athletic department (state general fund, foundations/private gifts, in-kind contributions) Meaning the actual revenue the athletic department generates is only about 3.86 million a loss of over 4 million. The above mentioned contributions are the equivalent of the allocations Utep does so both numbers are very similar in the end. Meaning if Utep is in the red then La Tech is definitely there by the same amount as well, using the same type of math. however since those allocations are taken into account, both are slightly over in the black.

[FriscoDawg]

What is not available looking at UTEP's Auxiliary Funds schedule is the exact breakdown for the athletic department that is available with Tech's NCAA-manadated Agreed-Upon Procedures document being referenced. UTEP is also required to file this document, but none of Texas' public universities appear to feel obligated to make that document available online as is done in Louisiana and several other states. The only apples-to-apples comparison would require this UTEP document for review.

But eliminating all state funding, student fees (student fees are counting as state funding in Louisiana), and all identified contributions, Louisiana Tech's remaining reported revenues cover 48.8% of its listed expenditures. UTEP's "Sales and Services" (not broken down in greater detail) cover only 47.6% of its operating expenses.

Another comparison would be to eliminate just Tech's state general fund transfer--all remaining revenues (including reported contributions) cover 69.7% of Tech's expenses. Eliminating UTEP's net student fees (to match Tech's general fund transfer) but adding back the total reported nonoperating revenue amount for all UTEP Auxiliary Enterprise Funds would produce an amount that covers only 61.6% of the UTEP operating expenses.

Removing Tech's general fund transfer would leave it $2,394,927 in the red. Allowing UTEP student fees to be counted as revenue (that's state funding in Louisiana) and reporting the maximum nonoperating revenue as income would leave UTEP $2,660,365 in the red to be covered by Designated Funds and Restricted Expendable Funds transfers. Remove student fee revenue and that amount becomes $4,059,013.

exactly, the line by line breakdown is not available in the Utep report so we have no idea how much is coming from booster donations and contributions or even how the wac money is factored in. You're mainly right but I just thought I'd put a different spin on the same numbers since we don't know the exact figures for Utep.

But eliminating all state funding, student fees (student fees are counting as state funding in Louisiana), and all identified contributions, Louisiana Tech's remaining reported revenues cover 48.8% of its listed expenditures. UTEP's "Sales and Services" (not broken down in greater detail) cover only 47.6% of its operating expenses.

Assuming Utep and La Tech receive the same amount of money from the wac, and also assuming that value is not already factored into Utep's account of 'Sales and Services' (doesnt sound like it), if you add the 633k to that figure, Utep's percentage jumps up to 54%. If you take away that contribution from La Tech's value, they fall down to 40.8%.

Another comparison would be to eliminate just Tech's state general fund transfer--all remaining revenues (including reported contributions) cover 69.7% of Tech's expenses. Eliminating UTEP's net student fees (to match Tech's general fund transfer) but adding back the total reported nonoperating revenue amount for all UTEP Auxiliary Enterprise Funds would produce an amount that covers only 61.6% of the UTEP operating expenses.

However, if you include the 'Other' category for La tech (since we don't know where this money is coming from), the percentage goes down to 62.3%, whici is statistically equal to Utep's 61.6%


Removing Tech's general fund transfer would leave it $2,394,927 in the red. Allowing UTEP student fees to be counted as revenue (that's state funding in Louisiana) and reporting the maximum nonoperating revenue as income would leave UTEP $2,660,365 in the red to be covered by Designated Funds and Restricted Expendable Funds transfers. Remove student fee revenue and that amount becomes $4,059,013.

I addressed this in my previous post so I'll just reword it a little. For Utep removing the student fee would amount to a difference of 4,059,013 (as you stated). However if you remove all of the revenue generated separate from the athletics themselves (state general fund, foundations/private gifts, in-kind contributions), La tech shows a difference of 4,139,018, around 4,772,000 if you eliminte the contribution made by the WAC. However way the numbers are spun, you get similar results between Utep and La Tech that it really isn't worth pointing out as a difference (except for the total budget numbers which seem to favor Utep but again, total buget numbers are not really true numbers because of the difference in scholarship costs between schools and travel)

This has been an interesting discussion and I think we've shown that you really can't take many of these numbers at face value. I still contend that to say Utep is in the red is not right unless you maintain that La tech is equally in the red by at best equal amounts.

[FriscoDawg]

WAC money is distributed as a direct result of athletic department operations. It would be inaccurate financial reporting for those amounts not to be included in UTEP's operating revenues. That fact renders a large part of your argument and calculations moot.

My original point was made on CUSAbbs on this issue since it was posted there that UTEP is not permitted to use state funding for athletics. The fact remains that somewhere between 25% and 32% of UTEP's expenses are being covered from funding sources outside the Auxiliary Enterprise Fund classification. Almost $1.4 million in gift contributions are listed within UTEP's Auxiliary Enterprise Funds, and most of those are likely directed to Athletics as opposed to Housing and Food Service, Bookstore, Parking and Traffic, Student Health Center, Student Activities, or Other. That's why I excluded Tech's contribution amounts at the same time I excluded UTEP's for comparison, and I included both (giving UTEP the maximum amount possible) in another comparison.

Giving UTEP athletics the maximum amounts possible from Auxiliary Enterprise Fund nonoperating revenue sources, UTEP still required from $180,339 to $930,916 more in transfers from outside state funds than Louisiana Tech received from its state general fund in 2002-2003. And applying UTEP student fees as state funds using Louisiana rules, that range would increase to between $1,578,987 and $2,329,564.

[HogDawg]

WHEW! Somebody spray a water hose on FriscoDawg. He's on fire and he's smoking!

HD

[dawg68]

I hope Frisco does not work for the IRS and my number comes up!

Notes:
Very well, we'll assume that you're correct and the wac figures are already taken into account under Utep's 'Sales and Services' designation.
Also, I hadn't seen the gift contributions item on my initial examination of the statement so I'll be able to take that into account now.

First off, you're right my first point is completely moot with the assumption about the wac money. However, the 2nd point is completely valid. All I'm doing is using the same figures you did and adding the 'other' category to La Tech's number. This changes the percentages to 62.3% compared to Utep's 61.6%.

In your latest points, I think your figures are correct for Utep but you never address La Tech's numbers, specially the 'in kind contributions' totalling 1,247,694. Obviously they're not corporate sponsorships or booster gifts because these are already factored separately. In fact, if you scroll up to page 5 point 12 in the tech financial statement, it states that this money comes from within the university, quote "We compared the direct and in-kind payments from the Louisiana Tech University Foundation to the university with the revenues reported on the University’s Statement of Revenues and Expenditures (Statement A)."

Seems to me that is the same kind of transfer you are speaking of when you give the 180k-930k range for Utep, which all appear to be inhouse money transfers. If you include the state general fund for La Tech, this figure goes up to 3.7 million, much more than the Utep max of 2.3 million that you cite.

So the fact remains that (1) Utep and La tech's budgets aren't really that similar, there is about a 25% expenditure difference between the two.

and (2) both La Tech and Utep require inter-dpt contributions to make their budgets float (which I'm sure is not out of the ordinary), in the case of Utep up to a max of 2.5 million with a bottom of 180-970k, in the case of La Tech a max of 3.7 million with a bottom of about 1.2million.

[FriscoDawg]

The Louisiana Tech University Foundation is a corporation separate from Louisiana Tech University. The Foundation's financial statements are not included as part of Louisiana Tech's annual financial statements. Amounts transferred from the Louisiana Tech University Foundation have no similarity to any amounts UTEP transferred to athletics from funds within the university budget outside its Auxiliary Enterprise Funds (from Designated Funds and Restricted Expendable Funds). If those UTEP amounts had been originally intended for athletics, they would have been reported as part of the Auxiliary Enterprise Fund balance.

Louisiana Tech reported $2,480,026 in state general fund transfers included all student fees in 2002-2003. To balance its budget UTEP had to transfer between $2,660,365 and $3,410,942 from other funds within the university budget--that's otherwise known as state funding. UTEP was claimed to have a self-sufficient athletic department by some posters on CUSAbbs, but for that to be true no state fund transfers or student fees would be needed to balance its budget. I'm not aware that anyone has claimed that Louisiana Tech is self-sufficent.

UTEP definitely spends more than Tech--$2,645,744 in 2002-2003. But including all possible revenue sources that could have been considered as "self-generated" including all Auxiliary Fund gift contributions/investment income and excluding all state funding including student fees, UTEP had somewhere between $981,658 more to $492,092 less in self-generated revenues than did Louisiana Tech. No Designated Fund or Restricted Expendable Fund transfers can be claimed as self-generated revenue, just as state general fund transfers and student fees are also not self-generated.

[Cal&Ken]

Hey FriscoDawg,

Thanks for the research. You never answer, what do you do for a living? I have never known anyone that likes the details like you seem to. You have got to work for the IRS or be an engineer. Please let us know if we are right.

[markay714]

I'm an engineer, and I can assure you that I'd never go into such excruciating detail on a message board. I'm guessing he's more in your line of work - or the old one, Cal&Ken!

double post, ignore

It's a well known fact in the state of texas that athletic departments must be self sufficient and can not use any state funds to support themselves. Obviously, there's some juggling being done in which no direct allocations are being made but we are never the less getting the funds supplied. I can't explain it but I'd be interested to know how this apparent contradiction exists. For all we know, these funds may be provided by a utep alumni organization similar to tech's university foundation through the restricted expendable funds.

And actually, if you look at Schedule B-4 of the Utep statement (pg 17) you'll see that they list another 4.2 million in gift contributions as a nonoperating revenue. While you're right that this value is not specifically tabbed for athletics, it serves the equivalent role of the Louisiana Tech Foundation in providing extra general funds the the university can then direct as they choose. It's easy to say that the money transferred into the auxilliary enterprise funds (specifiically the intercollegiate athletics) comes from that gift contributions listed there and not from state funds.

Finally, I wouldn't consider student fees as part of state funding because the legislature isn't providing the money (which is how it's definied in texas), the students are.

[FriscoDawg]

Student fees reduce the maximum permitted state general fund transfers into athletics dollar-for-dollar for all Louisiana universities. And all student fees have to be approved by a state university's governing body prior to being implemeneted or prior to being voted upon by the student body (for fees that require student body approval). That's makes the fees state-sanctioned--thus the funding rationale used in Louisiana.

I don't know how it's done in this state, but it must be a conscious loophole provided by the state of Texas in order to keep their hands clean and not be accused of bias. Schools with massive enrollments like UT and aTm can collect much more $$ in student fees than Utep ever could. It's no secret that we're a red headed step child in this state and exempting these funds (as I assume they do) is a way to keep the status quo with the appearance of fairness.

I noticed you didn't comment on the meat of my previous post. Curious on your thoughts.

[FriscoDawg]

I noticed you didn't comment on the meat of my previous post. Curious on your thoughts.

Really nothing else to comment on without being able to compare Louisiana Tech's Agreed-Upon Procedures document (that you linked) to UTEP's identical document. Louisiana Tech's format follows the NCAA's guidelines, and that same format is used by several Ohio schools whose statements are also available online.