UT asking NCAA to change finance reporting

University of Tennessee officials are asking the NCAA to reconsider how schools report financial information after a June article in USA Today labeled the school one of the most subsidized Bowl Championship Series-qualifying programs in the country.

The school argues the numbers, which amount to $13.552 million in subsidies for UT, unfairly represents the departments' finances by including overhead charges that other schools are not reporting and leaving out contributions made back to the university.

"We take a lot of pride in what we do financially as compared to our peers, and it just really bothered me when that (story) hit USA Today," Joan Cronan, interim vice chancellor for athletics, told the board of trustees audit committee Tuesday.

Cronan told members that she has requested the NCAA Leadership Council, on which she serves, to take up the issue of standardizing financial reporting at the next meeting.

"Uniformity in reporting is important if you're going to compare institutions or if the media is going to be comparing institutions," said UT President Joe DiPietro.

According to Bill Myers, UT's chief financial officer for athletics, the subsidy figure reported for UT, which came from financial documents each university is required to send to the NCAA, has two flaws: There is no way to account for money the department gives back to the university and each school is filling it differently.

Athletics receives $1 million in student fees that go to fund women's programs, but it also estimates it returns more than $7 million in the form of scholarship funding, beautification projects and other ways. Only the $1 million shows up on the reporting form.

This could change as early as next year, Myers said, adding that other schools have raised the same issue.

"There is no way for the NCAA to know that my cash flow is $6 million back to the university," Myers said. The percentage of schools who give back is so small that it was not on the radar of NCAA officials, he said.

Cronan said she would like to eliminate the $1 million the athletics department receives from student fees and instead give $1 million less back to the university. The university is looking into that option but will have to first discuss it with students to ensure that money could be earmarked for scholarships or other academic ventures currently funded by athletics instead of supporting Lady Vols teams, said Chris Cimino, vice chancellor for finance.

The other issue with the report, Myers said, is that UT's figure also includes more than $4 million in overhead costs and $8 million in the depreciation value of facilities it uses, which other schools are either not reporting at all or are calculating differently, resulting in a lowered cost.

UT compared campus and system budgets to the athletic budget in order to determine athletics' share of university services like human resources and the finance department.

"If we answer it, we want to answer it like our peers answer it," said Cronan. "There's 12 institutions in the (Southeastern Conference) and we're the only ones who report it this way."