Hello There, Guest! (LoginRegister)

Post Reply 
$540,000
Author Message
Bookmark and Share
Buccaneerlover Offline
All American American
*

Posts: 8,063
Joined: Jan 2006
Reputation: 57
I Root For: ETSU/Mid Majors
Location: Burb of MUSIC CITY!
Post: #21
RE: $540,000
Please God tell me who reported on the story. If it's one of about three to four people it has about as much credibility as a terd in the punchbowl.
If it's legit, then ETSU is in major trouble.
05-06-2008 10:55 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BucsFan Offline
1st String
*

Posts: 1,049
Joined: Dec 2007
Reputation: 10
I Root For: ETSU & UVa
Location: Bristol
Post: #22
RE: $540,000
The following is what was reported on the 6:00 airing. Apparently they have documents released by the university supporting the story.

WE NOW KNOW HOW MUCH E-T-S-U OVERSPENT IT'S BANK ACCOUNT FOR STUDENT ENTERTAINMENT THIS YEAR. NEWSCENTER FIVE REQUESTED THE FIGURES LAST WEEK AFTER LEARNING THE ACCOUNT WAS SEVERELY OVER BUDGET AFTER THIS SPRING'S CARRIE UNDERWOOD CONCERT. DOCUMENTS PROVIDED TO US SHOW UNIVERSITY OFFICIALS OVERSPENT THE ACCOUNT BY MORE THAN 209-THOUSAND DOLLARS. E-T-S-U SHELLED OUT JUST OVER HALF A MILLION FOR THE CARRIE UNDERWOOD CONCERT. THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL BILLS OUTSTANDING THAT WILL BE CHARGED AGAINST THE ACCOUNT.. PROBABLY LESS THAN 10-THOUSAND DOLLARS. THE UNIVERSITY HAS SUSPENDED ALL STUDENT ACTIVITY SPENDING.
05-07-2008 09:51 AM
Visit this user's website Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
stategradsmoke Offline
Bench Warmer
*

Posts: 137
Joined: Mar 2007
Reputation: 8
I Root For: ETSU Football
Location: Jonesborough, TN
Post: #23
RE: $540,000
03-puke More proof of what a joke etsu has become.
05-07-2008 11:43 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BucsFan Offline
1st String
*

Posts: 1,049
Joined: Dec 2007
Reputation: 10
I Root For: ETSU & UVa
Location: Bristol
Post: #24
RE: $540,000
This development begins to shed some light on this article from the East Tennessean in April.

http://media.www.easttennessean.com/medi...8466.shtml

BUC Fund shortfall
Johnathan Thacker
Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: News


Student organizations currently waiting for financial stipends from BUC Fund could be waiting awhile. On April 22 at the final SGA meeting of the year, it was announced that there will be no further BUC Fund spending until a reassessment of funds is completed at the end of the fiscal year in June.
The BUC Fund is the smaller of the two funds being temporarily placed on hold, with the other being the Super Fund.
"They are revolving accounts," said Dr. Sally Lee, SGA advisor and associate vice president of Student Affairs. "It's fiscally wise to have a stopping point, let everything hit and then go from there," she said.
The final act of the departing Senate was to unanimously pass SSB-017-08, which called for the formation of a committee to make decisions and allocations regarding BUC Fund over the summer.
All of the SGA's powers related to allocations will be transferred to this committee from June 1 until Aug. 25, at which point the committee will be dissolved.
This is somewhat similar to the Summer 606 sessions of the past.
The committee is only allowed to meet once during the summer to make decisions.
Current applications will be considered, but no new ones will be taken due to the amount already received. All applications for funding will be held until reassessment is complete.
"We'll assess the situation, and then see how we will proceed from there," said Lee. "This is the fiscally responsible thing to do," said Lee.
The $350 reorganization stipend for student organizations is also being placed on hold.
Notices are being sent out by mail, and Lee has been meeting personally with various groups notifying them.
"We're not taking any money back that has been given," Lee said.
However, if any portion of the $350 has already been spent, no further spending of the remainder will be allowed. "All funding not contracted out already has been stopped," Lee said.
05-07-2008 12:06 PM
Visit this user's website Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
BucsFan Offline
1st String
*

Posts: 1,049
Joined: Dec 2007
Reputation: 10
I Root For: ETSU & UVa
Location: Bristol
Post: #25
RE: $540,000
The BHC picked up on the story over the weekend.

http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/se...-0007.html

BY Daniel Gilbert
Reporter

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – The cost to bring Carrie Underwood to East Tennessee State University worked out to an eye-popping $41,077 per song, or $7,120 a minute for the time she played.

But the $534,000 price tag raised nary an administrator’s eyebrow until April – weeks after the country starlet and klieg lights had come and gone – when officials realized they had overdrawn their concert fund account by $209,000.

University officials have frozen the account, funded by student activities fees, and are borrowing money from internal cash reserves to cover outstanding fees until new activities revenues accrue. They credited the miscalculation to "human error" and said they have taken steps to fix the problem, but offered few specifics.

A spokesman declined to comment on whether disciplinary action had been taken.

"Someone misread a [computer] screen, and thought there was more money available than there really was," said David Collins, vice president of finance and administration. "We’ve gone over again how to read the screen. It’s a new accounting system, and we’re all still learning."

The upshot of the accounting error is, after settling the debt, about $161,000 will be available to bring in performers for student concerts in the coming academic year. That amount is down from the $726,601 spent in 2007-08 on Underwood and band, the All-American Rejects, and roughly half of the budget for concerts in the two previous academic years, according to university records.

"We anticipate having concerts, but not on the scale of Carrie Underwood," said Joe Sherlin, dean of students in the Office of Student Affairs.

University administrators said their method of accounting failed to dock expenditures from the concert fund, creating an illusion of a higher balance.

"The problem was that the accounting was not up to snuff," said Steven Bader, chief student affairs officer, who is ultimately responsible for signing off on student activities expenditures.

There also appears to have been a communications breakdown between Bader’s office and the university’s financial administrators, who generally review contracts.

"We probably should have caught it," said Collins, whose staff normally verifies account balances before an expenditure is approved. "We relied too much on Student Affairs. We didn’t watch the balances. Quite frankly, it shouldn’t have slipped through, but it did."

The Carrie Underwood concert cost nearly as much as four concerts from the two previous academic years, including Ludacris, the Goo Goo Dolls, Dierks Bentley and David Spade.

Some 8,000 people attended the concert at the Memorial Center, which was free to students and faculty members.

ETSU students pay $20 in activities fees for both the fall and spring semester – part of a push to bring big-name entertainers to campus that began with a student-approved fee hike in 2005. Three-quarters of the revenues are shunted into a superfund for a major event twice a year, and the rest goes into a general account for bankrolling projects by student organizations.

Student government officers – in concert with a faculty supervisor – exercise the financial purse strings of the activities funds. There is no limit, beyond what is in the account, to what can be spent on a single event, Sherlin said.

The normal process for bringing in a performer begins with a student poll in which students indicate their artist preferences. ETSU officials could not immediately provide numbers on how many students voted this year, but the student newspaper reported that 1,900 students cast ballots in the poll that included Underwood – the top vote-getter. A university spokeswoman said 13,389 students were enrolled last fall.

Student government representatives work with school administrators and a booking agency to settle on a performer within their price range. Representatives with Underwood’s booking agency, the Nashville-based Creative Artist Agency, said the singer’s fees vary widely, depending on the venue, and declined to quote a base fee for a university concert.

The high-dollar event generated some controversy on campus.

"For $400,000 – the amount paid for Carrie Underwood’s recent concert – ETSU could have easily had two or three [or more] less-famous musical acts, or even some kind of progressive music or performance series," wrote student Mira Gerard in the East Tennessean on April 3. "Something like that would represent the alternative to what we all can get by turning on our radios and watching TV."

But the depleted activities’ fund did not seem to trouble T.J. Mitchell, who was elected president of student government just a week after the concert, and whose administration will now be saddled with that debt.

"Students certainly got their money’s worth," said the rising senior, a chemistry major, of Underwood’s concert. "You always try to look at the positive side of these things. There’s nothing you can do about it now."

Staff Writer Brent Carney contributed to this report.

dgilbert@bristolnews.com
05-12-2008 02:21 PM
Visit this user's website Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 




User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)


Copyright © 2002-2024 Collegiate Sports Nation Bulletin Board System (CSNbbs), All Rights Reserved.
CSNbbs is an independent fan site and is in no way affiliated to the NCAA or any of the schools and conferences it represents.
This site monetizes links. FTC Disclosure.
We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit http://www.networkadvertising.org.
Powered By MyBB, © 2002-2024 MyBB Group.