Facility Funding Discussion

[gobiggergoredder]

3 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Reduced revenue from the state because Pillen didn't get his way?  If that's what is being said.....Nebraskans really need to think about who they vote for in that office.

You realize this happens in just about everything right?

[BigRedBuster]

3 minutes ago, gobiggergoredder said:

You realize this happens in just about everything right?

And when it’s obvious like this it should be called out. Especially for such a BS thing. 

[Mavric]

58 minutes ago, Madcows said:

And @Mavric you'll have to keep in mind that this is a MAJOR capital project, Athletics isn't generating that money on their own. University funds go towards that. Athletics makes enough to keep the lights on and the equipment clean, with enough to throw academics a few bones. Capital expenditures like this are a different category, a different budget and the finances for that are more complex and a hell of a lot more than athletics can handle, even with fundraising.

 

Still pretty sure this isn't the case.  Athletics is all it's own deal.

[Lorewarn]

1 hour ago, Mavric said:

 

Eh ... you said "the state reduced some revenues for the project."  Which I'm pretty sure is not correct.

 

And it's possible they are competing for the same donor dollars.  But that doesn't seem all that likely.  And I'd be curious how anyone actually knows that if it is true.

 

 

For me, re: the bolded, it's the general temperature across all social media conversation but also specifically influenced by SSO's blog (whoever he is he's proven over the years to be very well informed). I know the things he's talking about here aren't exactly the conversation we're having right now in relation to Pillen and budget cuts, but its part of the general conversation:

 

https://herbieshangout.com/2024/03/14/the-departure-of-trev-alberts/

 

So with no one helping guide the donors, it turned into everyone who was jockeying for donations fighting for themselves and in some instances s#!tting on other things that were important for the University. Trev had to talk about how much the funding was needed for him and maybe not so much NIL or the med center. NIL would talk about how a new stadium doesn’t win us any games (verbatim talk track to boosters) and that dollars need to be given to 1890 to get players in. With no President, there was no leadership. It almost turned into the Wild West.

Forward Think On The “Why”
So with no leadership, Trev had a hard time getting funds. We were light on donations for the stadium project and he was seemingly getting no help other than his direct employees. They outsourced to a 3rd party to help with donations, and that money is still owed for that help. A tough spot.

 

 

 

https://herbieshangout.com/2023/12/22/nebraska-and-the-collective/

 

Now for some of the challenges that are still present with our collective and the University. Donors are getting pulled into multiple directions from the University, and now they have an NIL collective trying to pull them another way in an effort to help the University. Guys that have a ton of cash and only have 30 minutes to talk have said “The University needs to get their s#!t together and tell us where the priorities are. I have a lot of money, but I don’t have 7 figures for the stadium project, 7 figures for NIL, 7 figures for the med center, etc.”

While AD Trev Alberts has said a couple times that the 1890 initiative is helping, the support hasn’t been as strong as some other athletic directors from across the country. ”NIL is an important piece of being competitive in the world of college athletics now. If you are wanting to contribute in that way…” and then state the website and how to donate to aid in 1890s efforts to raise more money. Rhule has done a great job promoting 1890, as he’s not as worried about the stadium project or other things. He wants a big NIL bucket for his players.

 

[Mavric]

5 minutes ago, Lorewarn said:

For me, re: the bolded, it's the general temperature across all social media conversation but also specifically influenced by SSO's blog (whoever he is he's proven over the years to be very well informed). I know the things he's talking about here aren't exactly the conversation we're having right now in relation to Pillen and budget cuts, but its part of the general conversation:

 

https://herbieshangout.com/2024/03/14/the-departure-of-trev-alberts/

 

https://herbieshangout.com/2023/12/22/nebraska-and-the-collective/

 

I'm sure there's some of that.  There aren't that many billionaires in the state to go around.

 

But if the only "proof" of that is an anonymous internet poster posting second-hand information about an anonymous donor, that's not exactly a strong indication of a system-wide problem.  Even though I do believe that SSO knows what he's talking about.

 

And still not the same situation to which I originally responded.

[Madcows]

On 3/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Mavric said:

 

Still pretty sure this isn't the case.  Athletics is all it's own deal.

 

Oh...OK, there it is, I found the disconnect. It's you.  While you're "pretty sure this isn't the case", I do the work, and know it's the case.  So Mav, can I call you Mav? Anyway, so Mav, I work in finance at a major university. I have friends who work in finance at major universities. Locally, I have friends who work at UNO, Creighton, UNL, Chadron and College of St Mary's, I correspond on a regular basis with finance people at other universities both in state and out of state. I have friends that work on the academic side, I have friends who work on the athletics side. I have worked on both sides. I have worked in audit at a major university, where part of my job was going to departments making sure the accounting practices they were doing in said department followed GAAP and university guidelines (you'd be shocked at some of the "creative accounting" athletics and development will do to provide tax benefits to major donors) so when all departments are rolled up to Treasury to finalize our reports, there are no accounting anomalies between departments that need to be corrected. Our annual NCAA audit is a stickler for accounting irregularities within the athletic department. The main commonality between all these different schools, whether the athletic department is in the black, the red, or relatively breaking, even was how capital projects were funded. While each university will have it's own naming formats, we all do it the same. There's this crazy account and budget for each school that is some derivative of "Capital Projects". Projects that are just too big for the department to handle, ie new dorms, new chem labs, upgrades to infrastructure (think repaving parking lots, upgrading HVACs, expanding buildings etc). The funds for this budget come from various sources, donations, state funds, fundraising events, and a portion of net profits from the university. Individual departments will submit proposals annually for capital projects, these are then reviewed by the board. Some are given a green light, some a yellow and others a red. Within green and yellow, they are then prioritized. With every proposal, each department will project how much they will fundraise to help mitigate the total estimate. Athletics will follow these same principals, even the ones who are in the black. That's because regardless of the net revenue/loss in athletics, they do not have capital projects in their annual budgets. This is because there's a whole different department that has that budget (that crazy Capital Projects department). So, when UNL announced major capital improvements to Memorial Stadium, it had already had a proposal done, with estimates of cost and fundraising goals, gone through the approval process, given a green light and allowed to proceed. Athletics will help fund the project, but they do not, and more importantly CANNOT, fund the project entirely. Now when funds to the university as a whole are reduced, one of the first areas that will be impacted will be the Capital Projects budget, as usually those are not priority needs for the university to run day-to-day operations. Hopefully, you can see where this is going...but I'll try to dumb it down for you and the board. Mav, when capital funding budget is decreased, I want you to take a wild guess on what that means for current capital projects? Yes, you are correct, those capital projects now have less funds available. Good work using your deductive skills. To counteract that, the project has to be modified to fit within the new budget, or the project department will have to make up the difference in fundraising. In some rare cases, the department will request a temporary allocation of their annual budget to the capital budget. Doing so usually means a reduction in overhead within said department. The biggest overhead that can be reduced is staff, hence why it doesn't happen often.  Now follow along with me Mav on a fun little ride, when the governor reduced funds to UNL (based on what we've learned above) what do you think happened to their stadium upgrade capital project? Correct!!  The project now has less funds available.  While it's nice that UNL Athletics operates in the black, it will give them a little bit of wiggle room for some shortfalls, that net revenue in no way covers the new variance within the project. This gives athletics a few options, either go back to the people that have committed above and beyond their normal donations to UNL, to help fund this capital project and ask for even more money or modify the current project to fit within the new budget. One thing I know (notice here how I didn't say pretty sure?) about UNL Athletics is they will not request a temporary allocation of their budget to the capital project. That's just not what they do.  

All of this is still a dumbed down version of what the finance team will do, and this team will be on both the academic side and the athletic side, all rolling up under Treasury.  The one take away I want you to understand Mav, athletics is not covering this project 100%, and (I can't emphasize this part enough) would never be able to do it on their own, the university handles this project. And while you're "pretty sure that's not how this works", I can emphatically tell you, you are wrong, and it is how this works.

[BigRedBuster]

Paragraphs are your friend.

[Decked]

50 minutes ago, Madcows said:

 

Oh...OK, there it is, I found the disconnect. It's you.  While you're "pretty sure this isn't the case", I do the work, and know it's the case.  So Mav, can I call you Mav? Anyway, so Mav, I work in finance at a major university. I have friends who work in finance at major universities. Locally, I have friends who work at UNO, Creighton, UNL, Chadron and College of St Mary's, I correspond on a regular basis with finance people at other universities both in state and out of state. I have friends that work on the academic side, I have friends who work on the athletics side. I have worked on both sides. I have worked in audit at a major university, where part of my job was going to departments making sure the accounting practices they were doing in said department followed GAAP and university guidelines (you'd be shocked at some of the "creative accounting" athletics and development will do to provide tax benefits to major donors) so when all departments are rolled up to Treasury to finalize our reports, there are no accounting anomalies between departments that need to be corrected. Our annual NCAA audit is a stickler for accounting irregularities within the athletic department. The main commonality between all these different schools, whether the athletic department is in the black, the red, or relatively breaking, even was how capital projects were funded. While each university will have it's own naming formats, we all do it the same. There's this crazy account and budget for each school that is some derivative of "Capital Projects". Projects that are just too big for the department to handle, ie new dorms, new chem labs, upgrades to infrastructure (think repaving parking lots, upgrading HVACs, expanding buildings etc). The funds for this budget come from various sources, donations, state funds, fundraising events, and a portion of net profits from the university. Individual departments will submit proposals annually for capital projects, these are then reviewed by the board. Some are given a green light, some a yellow and others a red. Within green and yellow, they are then prioritized. With every proposal, each department will project how much they will fundraise to help mitigate the total estimate. Athletics will follow these same principals, even the ones who are in the black. That's because regardless of the net revenue/loss in athletics, they do not have capital projects in their annual budgets. This is because there's a whole different department that has that budget (that crazy Capital Projects department). So, when UNL announced major capital improvements to Memorial Stadium, it had already had a proposal done, with estimates of cost and fundraising goals, gone through the approval process, given a green light and allowed to proceed. Athletics will help fund the project, but they do not, and more importantly CANNOT, fund the project entirely. Now when funds to the university as a whole are reduced, one of the first areas that will be impacted will be the Capital Projects budget, as usually those are not priority needs for the university to run day-to-day operations. Hopefully, you can see where this is going...but I'll try to dumb it down for you and the board. Mav, when capital funding budget is decreased, I want you to take a wild guess on what that means for current capital projects? Yes, you are correct, those capital projects now have less funds available. Good work using your deductive skills. To counteract that, the project has to be modified to fit within the new budget, or the project department will have to make up the difference in fundraising. In some rare cases, the department will request a temporary allocation of their annual budget to the capital budget. Doing so usually means a reduction in overhead within said department. The biggest overhead that can be reduced is staff, hence why it doesn't happen often.  Now follow along with me Mav on a fun little ride, when the governor reduced funds to UNL (based on what we've learned above) what do you think happened to their stadium upgrade capital project? Correct!!  The project now has less funds available.  While it's nice that UNL Athletics operates in the black, it will give them a little bit of wiggle room for some shortfalls, that net revenue in no way covers the new variance within the project. This gives athletics a few options, either go back to the people that have committed above and beyond their normal donations to UNL, to help fund this capital project and ask for even more money or modify the current project to fit within the new budget. One thing I know (notice here how I didn't say pretty sure?) about UNL Athletics is they will not request a temporary allocation of their budget to the capital project. That's just not what they do.  

All of this is still a dumbed down version of what the finance team will do, and this team will be on both the academic side and the athletic side, all rolling up under Treasury.  The one take away I want you to understand Mav, athletics is not covering this project 100%, and (I can't emphasize this part enough) would never be able to do it on their own, the university handles this project. And while you're "pretty sure that's not how this works", I can emphatically tell you, you are wrong, and it is how this works.

Man I ain’t reading that 

[GSG]

1 hour ago, Madcows said:

 

Oh...OK, there it is, I found the disconnect. It's you.  While you're "pretty sure this isn't the case", I do the work, and know it's the case.  So Mav, can I call you Mav? Anyway, so Mav, I work in finance at a major university. I have friends who work in finance at major universities. Locally, I have friends who work at UNO, Creighton, UNL, Chadron and College of St Mary's, I correspond on a regular basis with finance people at other universities both in state and out of state. I have friends that work on the academic side, I have friends who work on the athletics side. I have worked on both sides. I have worked in audit at a major university, where part of my job was going to departments making sure the accounting practices they were doing in said department followed GAAP and university guidelines (you'd be shocked at some of the "creative accounting" athletics and development will do to provide tax benefits to major donors) so when all departments are rolled up to Treasury to finalize our reports, there are no accounting anomalies between departments that need to be corrected. Our annual NCAA audit is a stickler for accounting irregularities within the athletic department. The main commonality between all these different schools, whether the athletic department is in the black, the red, or relatively breaking, even was how capital projects were funded. While each university will have it's own naming formats, we all do it the same. There's this crazy account and budget for each school that is some derivative of "Capital Projects". Projects that are just too big for the department to handle, ie new dorms, new chem labs, upgrades to infrastructure (think repaving parking lots, upgrading HVACs, expanding buildings etc). The funds for this budget come from various sources, donations, state funds, fundraising events, and a portion of net profits from the university. Individual departments will submit proposals annually for capital projects, these are then reviewed by the board. Some are given a green light, some a yellow and others a red. Within green and yellow, they are then prioritized. With every proposal, each department will project how much they will fundraise to help mitigate the total estimate. Athletics will follow these same principals, even the ones who are in the black. That's because regardless of the net revenue/loss in athletics, they do not have capital projects in their annual budgets. This is because there's a whole different department that has that budget (that crazy Capital Projects department). So, when UNL announced major capital improvements to Memorial Stadium, it had already had a proposal done, with estimates of cost and fundraising goals, gone through the approval process, given a green light and allowed to proceed. Athletics will help fund the project, but they do not, and more importantly CANNOT, fund the project entirely. Now when funds to the university as a whole are reduced, one of the first areas that will be impacted will be the Capital Projects budget, as usually those are not priority needs for the university to run day-to-day operations. Hopefully, you can see where this is going...but I'll try to dumb it down for you and the board. Mav, when capital funding budget is decreased, I want you to take a wild guess on what that means for current capital projects? Yes, you are correct, those capital projects now have less funds available. Good work using your deductive skills. To counteract that, the project has to be modified to fit within the new budget, or the project department will have to make up the difference in fundraising. In some rare cases, the department will request a temporary allocation of their annual budget to the capital budget. Doing so usually means a reduction in overhead within said department. The biggest overhead that can be reduced is staff, hence why it doesn't happen often.  Now follow along with me Mav on a fun little ride, when the governor reduced funds to UNL (based on what we've learned above) what do you think happened to their stadium upgrade capital project? Correct!!  The project now has less funds available.  While it's nice that UNL Athletics operates in the black, it will give them a little bit of wiggle room for some shortfalls, that net revenue in no way covers the new variance within the project. This gives athletics a few options, either go back to the people that have committed above and beyond their normal donations to UNL, to help fund this capital project and ask for even more money or modify the current project to fit within the new budget. One thing I know (notice here how I didn't say pretty sure?) about UNL Athletics is they will not request a temporary allocation of their budget to the capital project. That's just not what they do.  

All of this is still a dumbed down version of what the finance team will do, and this team will be on both the academic side and the athletic side, all rolling up under Treasury.  The one take away I want you to understand Mav, athletics is not covering this project 100%, and (I can't emphasize this part enough) would never be able to do it on their own, the university handles this project. And while you're "pretty sure that's not how this works", I can emphatically tell you, you are wrong, and it is how this works.

 

[Dogs In A Pile]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

Paragraphs are your friend.

 

Yep. If the OP can't bothered to make an attempt at readability I can't be bothered to try to wade through that alphabet soup of a post.

[Stumpy1]

I thought it was a good read. 

[caveman99]

2 hours ago, Madcows said:

 

Oh...OK, there it is, I found the disconnect. It's you.  While you're "pretty sure this isn't the case", I do the work, and know it's the case.  So Mav, can I call you Mav? Anyway, so Mav, I work in finance at a major university. I have friends who work in finance at major universities. Locally, I have friends who work at UNO, Creighton, UNL, Chadron and College of St Mary's, I correspond on a regular basis with finance people at other universities both in state and out of state. I have friends that work on the academic side, I have friends who work on the athletics side. I have worked on both sides. I have worked in audit at a major university, where part of my job was going to departments making sure the accounting practices they were doing in said department followed GAAP and university guidelines (you'd be shocked at some of the "creative accounting" athletics and development will do to provide tax benefits to major donors) so when all departments are rolled up to Treasury to finalize our reports, there are no accounting anomalies between departments that need to be corrected. Our annual NCAA audit is a stickler for accounting irregularities within the athletic department. The main commonality between all these different schools, whether the athletic department is in the black, the red, or relatively breaking, even was how capital projects were funded. While each university will have it's own naming formats, we all do it the same. There's this crazy account and budget for each school that is some derivative of "Capital Projects". Projects that are just too big for the department to handle, ie new dorms, new chem labs, upgrades to infrastructure (think repaving parking lots, upgrading HVACs, expanding buildings etc). The funds for this budget come from various sources, donations, state funds, fundraising events, and a portion of net profits from the university. Individual departments will submit proposals annually for capital projects, these are then reviewed by the board. Some are given a green light, some a yellow and others a red. Within green and yellow, they are then prioritized. With every proposal, each department will project how much they will fundraise to help mitigate the total estimate. Athletics will follow these same principals, even the ones who are in the black. That's because regardless of the net revenue/loss in athletics, they do not have capital projects in their annual budgets. This is because there's a whole different department that has that budget (that crazy Capital Projects department). So, when UNL announced major capital improvements to Memorial Stadium, it had already had a proposal done, with estimates of cost and fundraising goals, gone through the approval process, given a green light and allowed to proceed. Athletics will help fund the project, but they do not, and more importantly CANNOT, fund the project entirely. Now when funds to the university as a whole are reduced, one of the first areas that will be impacted will be the Capital Projects budget, as usually those are not priority needs for the university to run day-to-day operations. Hopefully, you can see where this is going...but I'll try to dumb it down for you and the board. Mav, when capital funding budget is decreased, I want you to take a wild guess on what that means for current capital projects? Yes, you are correct, those capital projects now have less funds available. Good work using your deductive skills. To counteract that, the project has to be modified to fit within the new budget, or the project department will have to make up the difference in fundraising. In some rare cases, the department will request a temporary allocation of their annual budget to the capital budget. Doing so usually means a reduction in overhead within said department. The biggest overhead that can be reduced is staff, hence why it doesn't happen often.  Now follow along with me Mav on a fun little ride, when the governor reduced funds to UNL (based on what we've learned above) what do you think happened to their stadium upgrade capital project? Correct!!  The project now has less funds available.  While it's nice that UNL Athletics operates in the black, it will give them a little bit of wiggle room for some shortfalls, that net revenue in no way covers the new variance within the project. This gives athletics a few options, either go back to the people that have committed above and beyond their normal donations to UNL, to help fund this capital project and ask for even more money or modify the current project to fit within the new budget. One thing I know (notice here how I didn't say pretty sure?) about UNL Athletics is they will not request a temporary allocation of their budget to the capital project. That's just not what they do.  

All of this is still a dumbed down version of what the finance team will do, and this team will be on both the academic side and the athletic side, all rolling up under Treasury.  The one take away I want you to understand Mav, athletics is not covering this project 100%, and (I can't emphasize this part enough) would never be able to do it on their own, the university handles this project. And while you're "pretty sure that's not how this works", I can emphatically tell you, you are wrong, and it is how this works.

Great overview and it is pretty sound. A lot of similarities to how big companies treat CapEx so it made sense to me.

[Guy Chamberlin]

3 hours ago, Dogs In A Pile said:

 

Yep. If the OP can't bothered to make an attempt at readability I can't be bothered to try to wade through that alphabet soup of a post.

 

Too bad. We're lucky to have someone who actually knows their s#!t to counter the gut feelings of less informed posters. Given that he'd already provided multiple dumbed down versions that some folks didn't trust, he really had no choice.

 

Not sure a few paragraph breaks would have won you over. 

 

Appreciate the effort Madcows.  

[Mavric]

10 hours ago, Madcows said:

 

Oh...OK, there it is, I found the disconnect. It's you.  While you're "pretty sure this isn't the case", I do the work, and know it's the case.  So Mav, can I call you Mav? Anyway, so Mav, I work in finance at a major university. I have friends who work in finance at major universities. Locally, I have friends who work at UNO, Creighton, UNL, Chadron and College of St Mary's, I correspond on a regular basis with finance people at other universities both in state and out of state. I have friends that work on the academic side, I have friends who work on the athletics side. I have worked on both sides. I have worked in audit at a major university, where part of my job was going to departments making sure the accounting practices they were doing in said department followed GAAP and university guidelines (you'd be shocked at some of the "creative accounting" athletics and development will do to provide tax benefits to major donors) so when all departments are rolled up to Treasury to finalize our reports, there are no accounting anomalies between departments that need to be corrected. Our annual NCAA audit is a stickler for accounting irregularities within the athletic department. The main commonality between all these different schools, whether the athletic department is in the black, the red, or relatively breaking, even was how capital projects were funded. While each university will have it's own naming formats, we all do it the same. There's this crazy account and budget for each school that is some derivative of "Capital Projects". Projects that are just too big for the department to handle, ie new dorms, new chem labs, upgrades to infrastructure (think repaving parking lots, upgrading HVACs, expanding buildings etc). The funds for this budget come from various sources, donations, state funds, fundraising events, and a portion of net profits from the university. Individual departments will submit proposals annually for capital projects, these are then reviewed by the board. Some are given a green light, some a yellow and others a red. Within green and yellow, they are then prioritized. With every proposal, each department will project how much they will fundraise to help mitigate the total estimate. Athletics will follow these same principals, even the ones who are in the black. That's because regardless of the net revenue/loss in athletics, they do not have capital projects in their annual budgets. This is because there's a whole different department that has that budget (that crazy Capital Projects department). So, when UNL announced major capital improvements to Memorial Stadium, it had already had a proposal done, with estimates of cost and fundraising goals, gone through the approval process, given a green light and allowed to proceed. Athletics will help fund the project, but they do not, and more importantly CANNOT, fund the project entirely. Now when funds to the university as a whole are reduced, one of the first areas that will be impacted will be the Capital Projects budget, as usually those are not priority needs for the university to run day-to-day operations. Hopefully, you can see where this is going...but I'll try to dumb it down for you and the board. Mav, when capital funding budget is decreased, I want you to take a wild guess on what that means for current capital projects? Yes, you are correct, those capital projects now have less funds available. Good work using your deductive skills. To counteract that, the project has to be modified to fit within the new budget, or the project department will have to make up the difference in fundraising. In some rare cases, the department will request a temporary allocation of their annual budget to the capital budget. Doing so usually means a reduction in overhead within said department. The biggest overhead that can be reduced is staff, hence why it doesn't happen often.  Now follow along with me Mav on a fun little ride, when the governor reduced funds to UNL (based on what we've learned above) what do you think happened to their stadium upgrade capital project? Correct!!  The project now has less funds available.  While it's nice that UNL Athletics operates in the black, it will give them a little bit of wiggle room for some shortfalls, that net revenue in no way covers the new variance within the project. This gives athletics a few options, either go back to the people that have committed above and beyond their normal donations to UNL, to help fund this capital project and ask for even more money or modify the current project to fit within the new budget. One thing I know (notice here how I didn't say pretty sure?) about UNL Athletics is they will not request a temporary allocation of their budget to the capital project. That's just not what they do.  

All of this is still a dumbed down version of what the finance team will do, and this team will be on both the academic side and the athletic side, all rolling up under Treasury.  The one take away I want you to understand Mav, athletics is not covering this project 100%, and (I can't emphasize this part enough) would never be able to do it on their own, the university handles this project. And while you're "pretty sure that's not how this works", I can emphatically tell you, you are wrong, and it is how this works.

 

What was the capital budget of the athletic department before the cuts?

 

What is it now?

 

How much money from the University went to the new facility that is just getting completed?

[pigfarmer]

On 3/20/2024 at 3:47 PM, Stumpy1 said:

I think it's a pretty well known fact that the Athletic Department gives the Academic Department money to make up for short comings.  Now take away some money from the Academic Department and the Athletic Department will more than likely make up said difference which can put a hinder in projects. 

 

I admit that I am no expert on university finances, but I have to question this assertion.  We always hear that the athletic department makes all this money and is supporting academics, but is it really?  Are there any specific instances where you see the athletic department giving scholarships out to, say, math majors?  I think most of the 'support' athletic departments claim they give to the universities is self-serving, like paying tutors for their players etc.  Again, not claiming to be an expert, but this is one of those things that I hear all the time (not just for UNL) without any examples to show that the athletics really support the university in any way other than athletics.