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(02-09-2020 10:04 AM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  The thing that also hurts JMU from moving up to FBS, is the Cox's Bill. While it hit us hard, it would hurt JMU in moving up. First they would need General Assembly approval to move up and then they would need to reduce their dependence of student fees, which is subsidised at 81%. Add $2-4 million fee to the new conference and add a $1.25 million exit fee to CAA.

The irony of the Cox legislation is that while it substantially slowed our growth and has been generally a pia, It may be the thing that makes it almost impossible for JMU to ever move up.

Kirk Cox is after all a JMU alum. Coincidence?

Funny thing about Cox’s Law. So it’s pretty common knowledge that VA requires schools to pack things into their athletic budget that other schools don’t. When the law was being drafted schools lobbied to have certain items removed from the calculation and lawmakers agreed. So if you look at a VA schools athletic financials you could take out items like spirit groups, institution overhead and debt obligations from grandfathered projects. This makes it a little easier and fairer for schools to meet the laws requirements. So far so good,right? But if you look at the law itself it says that these items are to be removed from the numerator (student fees allocated to athletics) but the denominator includes ALL revenues including those items. So not only is this just mathematically incorrect in calculating percentage of a whole but it makes it A LOT easier to meet the requirements. I have to think that this was an oversight in drafting the law but based on what I’ve read and my own calculations it seems that JMUs AD is aware of this and is calculating it as such but our own is not as we would have been in the 40% range the last few years but that’s not what our administration has been communicating. I’ll post links later if anyone is interested.

Edit: here’s a link to the law. Look at the definitions of “athletic revenue”, “subsidy” and “subsidy percentage”. The subsidy percentage says to remove certain items from subsidy but doesn’t say to do the same for athletic revenue.

https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604...l+CHAP0704

(02-10-2020 01:27 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Funny thing about Cox’s Law. So it’s pretty common knowledge that VA requires schools to pack things into their athletic budget that other schools don’t. When the law was being drafted schools lobbied to have certain items removed from the calculation and lawmakers agreed. So if you look at a VA schools athletic financials you could take out items like spirit groups, institution overhead and debt obligations from grandfathered projects. This makes it a little easier and fairer for schools to meet the laws requirements. So far so good,right? But if you look at the law itself it says that these items are to be removed from the numerator (student fees allocated to athletics) but the denominator includes ALL expenses including those items. So not only is this just mathematically incorrect in calculating percentage of a whole but it makes it A LOT easier to meet the requirements. I have to think that this was an oversight in drafting the law but based on what I’ve read and my own calculations it seems that JMUs AD is aware of this and is calculating it as such but our own is not as we would have been in the 40% range the last few years but that’s not what our administration has been communicating. I’ll post links later if anyone is interested.

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Under the Cox law, an FBS school may fund athletics to 55% of total with student fees. An FCS school like James Madison is allowed 70%, so it is difficult to compare the two in that respect.
We were all given ten years to fully comply with the Cox legislation.
Remember too that in Virginia, athletic expenditures cannot be "hidden" in so-called general categories or otherwise.


The point is that JMU is fully extended on it's athletic budget, already fielding the minimum of men's sports, and one over the total. Likely (not sure) it could not drop that one women's program to save money due to Title IX issues with the increase in men's football.

If Madison went to FBS:
It would need to increase football scholarships from 63 to 85.
It would want to correspondingly increase stipends to be competitive.
It would incur one time conference exit and entrance fees.
It would need to increase football coaching salaries.
It would almost assuredly need to increase travel expenses in all sports.
ALL of the above while having to cut it's reliance on student fees from 70% TO 55%.

Further, up until now, JMU has not been able to collect athletic donations at close to the levels of ODU.
I just don't see how it could ever go FBS under the proscriptions of the Cox law.

How do you account for the difference in athletic donations? JMU is a pretty well heeled school

(02-10-2020 02:30 PM)VB Monarch Wrote:  How do you account for the difference in athletic donations? JMU is a pretty well heeled school

A salient question. Usually (though not always) traditional-campus schools have a better alumni-engagement rate, including donations, than schools that are more commuter-based like ODU. They have a smaller alumni base but that alone wouldn't explain it, I don't think.

(02-10-2020 02:30 PM)VB Monarch Wrote:  How do you account for the difference in athletic donations? JMU is a pretty well heeled school

Harrisonburg doesn't have a lot of great corporate sponsorship opportunities. That is the biggest difference between ODU and JMU, since the top 5% of our donors are accounting for 95% of the donations.

It also likely doesn't help fundraising that they were a teacher's college for so long. Hard to build a great base when your oldest alums are retired teachers. So that should improve over time for them. But I doubt that ever bridges the gap for them to pass ODU and our corporate based streams.

What Drunkard said. A few years ago we discussed this on their board. The older female demographic and relatively rural location was certainly my conclusion.

Sent from my SM-S767VL using Tapatalk

(02-10-2020 02:20 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 01:27 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Funny thing about Cox’s Law. So it’s pretty common knowledge that VA requires schools to pack things into their athletic budget that other schools don’t. When the law was being drafted schools lobbied to have certain items removed from the calculation and lawmakers agreed. So if you look at a VA schools athletic financials you could take out items like spirit groups, institution overhead and debt obligations from grandfathered projects. This makes it a little easier and fairer for schools to meet the laws requirements. So far so good,right? But if you look at the law itself it says that these items are to be removed from the numerator (student fees allocated to athletics) but the denominator includes ALL expenses including those items. So not only is this just mathematically incorrect in calculating percentage of a whole but it makes it A LOT easier to meet the requirements. I have to think that this was an oversight in drafting the law but based on what I’ve read and my own calculations it seems that JMUs AD is aware of this and is calculating it as such but our own is not as we would have been in the 40% range the last few years but that’s not what our administration has been communicating. I’ll post links later if anyone is interested.

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Under the Cox law, an FBS school may fund athletics to 55% of total with student fees. An FCS school like James Madison is allowed 70%, so it is difficult to compare the two in that respect.
We were all given ten years to fully comply with the Cox legislation.
Remember too that in Virginia, athletic expenditures cannot be "hidden" in so-called general categories or otherwise.


The point is that JMU is fully extended on it's athletic budget, already fielding the minimum of men's sports, and one over the total. Likely (not sure) it could not drop that one women's program to save money due to Title IX issues with the increase in men's football.

If Madison went to FBS:
It would need to increase football scholarships from 63 to 85.
It would want to correspondingly increase stipends to be competitive.
It would incur one time conference exit and entrance fees.
It would need to increase football coaching salaries.
It would almost assuredly need to increase travel expenses in all sports.
ALL of the above while having to cut it's reliance on student fees from 70% TO 55%.

Further, up until now, JMU has not been able to collect athletic donations at close to the levels of ODU.
I just don't see how it could ever go FBS under the proscriptions of the Cox law.

I’ll post more detail later but basically I’m saying that the way you calculate that 55% or 70% based on the way the laws written takes pretty much all the teeth out of it. And based on statements from Wood Selig I don’t think he realizes it but JMUs AD does also based on statements he’s made. I updated my post from earlier with links to the law. If I’m correct then JMU would certainly still need to increase their generated revenue to make the move according to coxs law but it’s not such an uphill climb and we could immediately begin leaning on student fees more heavily to increase our budget and fund projects or salaries with no worries about the Cox law. Not that I think Broderick wants to do that but we could.

(02-10-2020 03:31 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 02:20 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 01:27 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Funny thing about Cox’s Law. So it’s pretty common knowledge that VA requires schools to pack things into their athletic budget that other schools don’t. When the law was being drafted schools lobbied to have certain items removed from the calculation and lawmakers agreed. So if you look at a VA schools athletic financials you could take out items like spirit groups, institution overhead and debt obligations from grandfathered projects. This makes it a little easier and fairer for schools to meet the laws requirements. So far so good,right? But if you look at the law itself it says that these items are to be removed from the numerator (student fees allocated to athletics) but the denominator includes ALL expenses including those items. So not only is this just mathematically incorrect in calculating percentage of a whole but it makes it A LOT easier to meet the requirements. I have to think that this was an oversight in drafting the law but based on what I’ve read and my own calculations it seems that JMUs AD is aware of this and is calculating it as such but our own is not as we would have been in the 40% range the last few years but that’s not what our administration has been communicating. I’ll post links later if anyone is interested.

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Under the Cox law, an FBS school may fund athletics to 55% of total with student fees. An FCS school like James Madison is allowed 70%, so it is difficult to compare the two in that respect.
We were all given ten years to fully comply with the Cox legislation.
Remember too that in Virginia, athletic expenditures cannot be "hidden" in so-called general categories or otherwise.


The point is that JMU is fully extended on it's athletic budget, already fielding the minimum of men's sports, and one over the total. Likely (not sure) it could not drop that one women's program to save money due to Title IX issues with the increase in men's football.

If Madison went to FBS:
It would need to increase football scholarships from 63 to 85.
It would want to correspondingly increase stipends to be competitive.
It would incur one time conference exit and entrance fees.
It would need to increase football coaching salaries.
It would almost assuredly need to increase travel expenses in all sports.
ALL of the above while having to cut it's reliance on student fees from 70% TO 55%.

Further, up until now, JMU has not been able to collect athletic donations at close to the levels of ODU.
I just don't see how it could ever go FBS under the proscriptions of the Cox law.

I’ll post more detail later but basically I’m saying that the way you calculate that 55% or 70% based on the way the laws written takes pretty much all the teeth out of it. And based on statements from Wood Selig I don’t think he realizes it but JMUs AD does also based on statements he’s made. I updated my post from earlier with links to the law. If I’m correct then JMU would certainly still need to increase their generated revenue to make the move according to coxs law but it’s not such an uphill climb and we could immediately begin leaning on student fees more heavily to increase our budget and fund projects or salaries with no worries about the Cox law. Not that I think Broderick wants to do that but we could.

Please elaborate

(02-10-2020 02:20 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 01:27 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Funny thing about Cox’s Law. So it’s pretty common knowledge that VA requires schools to pack things into their athletic budget that other schools don’t. When the law was being drafted schools lobbied to have certain items removed from the calculation and lawmakers agreed. So if you look at a VA schools athletic financials you could take out items like spirit groups, institution overhead and debt obligations from grandfathered projects. This makes it a little easier and fairer for schools to meet the laws requirements. So far so good,right? But if you look at the law itself it says that these items are to be removed from the numerator (student fees allocated to athletics) but the denominator includes ALL expenses including those items. So not only is this just mathematically incorrect in calculating percentage of a whole but it makes it A LOT easier to meet the requirements. I have to think that this was an oversight in drafting the law but based on what I’ve read and my own calculations it seems that JMUs AD is aware of this and is calculating it as such but our own is not as we would have been in the 40% range the last few years but that’s not what our administration has been communicating. I’ll post links later if anyone is interested.

I am not sure what you are saying here.

Under the Cox law, an FBS school may fund athletics to 55% of total with student fees. An FCS school like James Madison is allowed 70%, so it is difficult to compare the two in that respect.
We were all given ten years to fully comply with the Cox legislation.
Remember too that in Virginia, athletic expenditures cannot be "hidden" in so-called general categories or otherwise.


The point is that JMU is fully extended on it's athletic budget, already fielding the minimum of men's sports, and one over the total. Likely (not sure) it could not drop that one women's program to save money due to Title IX issues with the increase in men's football.

If Madison went to FBS:
It would need to increase football scholarships from 63 to 85.
It would want to correspondingly increase stipends to be competitive.
It would incur one time conference exit and entrance fees.
It would need to increase football coaching salaries.
It would almost assuredly need to increase travel expenses in all sports.
ALL of the above while having to cut it's reliance on student fees from 70% TO 55%.

Further, up until now, JMU has not been able to collect athletic donations at close to the levels of ODU.
I just don't see how it could ever go FBS under the proscriptions of the Cox law.

I have been informed that JMU is right on the edge of Title IX compliance now.

Quote: If they added 22 scholarships for men they would have to add at least 33 SCHOLARSHIPS for women. Now since they can't add 33 women to their women's basketball team (or any team the NCAA limits the number of scholarships for) they would probably have to add at least 2-3 new women's sports teams with staff, support and whatever playing venues are needed. Then as you noted there would be even more travel expense just for the new women's team

The exact numbers above (based on recent 60/40 f to m) will vary at any given time based on female/male enrollment percentage, but likely only by a handful.

If the above I posted wasn't enough, surely Title IX compliance would be the killshot.

(02-10-2020 03:41 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  Please elaborate

Ok. So I posted a link to the law as it was passed in an earlier post. It says that the subsidy percentage can't be above certain levels as we all know. It's how it defines subsidy percentage that is the kicker. Basically it says that it's the subsidy divided by total athletic revenues BUT you can reduce the subsidy by 3 line items that are found in the financial statements. It does not say the subsidy and the total athletic revenue. So as I mentioned earlier if you take something out of the numerator but not the denominator not only does it mathematically go against the idea percentages of a whole it will give you a much lower percentage.

ODU:

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...c0fc6.html

In this article Deputy athletic director Ken Brown (I had said Selig earlier) stated: "The good news is that we're very close to 55 percent now,". This article is from 9/12/17 so I'm going to assume he has the financial figures from the fiscal year ending 6/30/17 and use that year. Here they are:

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/OldD...AA2017.pdf

It that year USA Today showed us at 62% subsidized. According to the tax law we can remove from the athletic budget the following line items: Spirit Groups, Indirect costs paid to the institution by athletics and Athletic Facility Debt Services. This last is only for projects approved before June 30, 2015. It looks like we had a bond issued for less than 1 million for some Powhatan Center improvements in 2016 but the service on that would be pretty negligible for our purposes. So those three items add up to about 7 million. If you subtract that from our subsidies of 28.7M and our total revenues of 46.2M then the subsidy % comes out to about you get 55.36% (I did some rounding). So I would say that is very close indeed but notice that I subtracted the 3 items from both the numerator and denominator.

JMU:

This is from an communication from Jeff Bourne:

http://jmusports.com/news/2016/9/1/bourn...tters.aspx

"For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, JMU generated over $35 million of its revenue from these student fees. The Cox Bill states that FCS programs such as JMU and William and Mary must rely on student fees for no more than 70% of its expenses. However, for purposes of these calculations, the legislation also provides for excluding certain expenses that I discussed above that JMU includes in its athletics budget – namely spirit groups, debt services (that were approved by the Commonwealth prior to June 30, 2015) and institutional service charges. After that consideration, JMU sits at 58 percent of its budget stemming from student fees, which is well below the Cox Bill requirement at the FCS level. Should the university have an invitation to an FBS conference to consider in the future, the Cox Bill requirement is 55 percent. In order to hit that mark, JMU would need to increase its athletics-generated revenue by $8.5 million by 2021-22. It is also worth noting that Virginia is one of just two states in the country that currently places this student fee limitation on its college athletics programs. Additionally, it is important to note that the new Convocation Center project was approved by the state prior to the Cox Bill and therefore is exempt from consideration."

58% ?!?!?!?? How'd he do that? USA Today stated they were at 80% subsidized that year. Let's look at their books.

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/JMUNCAA15.pdf

So using the same formula as I did above exempt items 9.8M, student fees 35.3M, total revenues 44.8M. Subtract 9.8 from both the subsidy and total and divide and you get 72.86%. Now let's just subtract the 9.8 from the subsidy then divide by the full revenues and you come out to........ 56.92% (If you don't round it comes out to the 58% he stated).

So.

I'm no lawyer but reading the law I think JMU's way is technically right (but maybe not the intent). And if you go back and redo ODU's the same way you'll find we've been at under 50% for many years. If ODU administration knows this they sure aren't letting on.

I had no idea JMU was in the MEAC. Y'all continue to illuminate my path daily.

My daughter graduated from JMU and I was blown away by the student fees. This year tuition is right at $7,050/yr and mandatory student fees $4,950/yr. ODU's mandatory fees are almost $1,700 less, the tuition is about the same. I don't know how these kids do it and student loans isn't the answer.

I know we have to be very tight. FB, MBB, WBB tickets sales are down, media money is close to zip and add HC buyout. Guys better get use to JJ or find some deep pockets.

(02-10-2020 05:50 PM)Grommet Wrote:  I had no idea JMU was in the MEAC. Y'all continue to illuminate my path daily.

???? Did you not read the OP???

This post was not about the MEAC directly, but a predicted domino effect occurring due it's demise.

(02-10-2020 05:58 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  My daughter graduated from JMU and I was blown away by the student fees. This year tuition is right at $7,050/yr and mandatory student fees $4,950/yr. ODU's mandatory fees are almost $1,700 less, the tuition is about the same. I don't know how these kids do it and student loans isn't the answer.

I know we have to be very tight. FB, MBB, WBB tickets sales are down, media money is close to zip and add HC buyout. Guys better get use to JJ or find some deep pockets.

No, I think ODU is right in freezing their fees but the interpretation of the Cox law apparently being used by JMU and not ODU (a lot of speculation on my part) could be used to further ODU athletics in other ways than raising those fees. Increasing enrollment or allocating the activity fee (of which athletics is a part) more heavily in favor of athletics could both be done without increasing the burden on students but the Cox law could prohibit even those moves if we are close to the subsidy percentage limit.

(02-10-2020 05:30 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 03:41 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  Please elaborate

Ok. So I posted a link to the law as it was passed in an earlier post. It says that the subsidy percentage can't be above certain levels as we all know. It's how it defines subsidy percentage that is the kicker. Basically it says that it's the subsidy divided by total athletic revenues BUT you can reduce the subsidy by 3 line items that are found in the financial statements. It does not say the subsidy and the total athletic revenue. So as I mentioned earlier if you take something out of the numerator but not the denominator not only does it mathematically go against the idea percentages of a whole it will give you a much lower percentage.

ODU:

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...c0fc6.html

In this article Deputy athletic director Ken Brown (I had said Selig earlier) stated: "The good news is that we're very close to 55 percent now,". This article is from 9/12/17 so I'm going to assume he has the financial figures from the fiscal year ending 6/30/17 and use that year. Here they are:

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/OldD...AA2017.pdf

It that year USA Today showed us at 62% subsidized. According to the tax law we can remove from the athletic budget the following line items: Spirit Groups, Indirect costs paid to the institution by athletics and Athletic Facility Debt Services. This last is only for projects approved before June 30, 2015. It looks like we had a bond issued for less than 1 million for some Powhatan Center improvements in 2016 but the service on that would be pretty negligible for our purposes. So those three items add up to about 7 million. If you subtract that from our subsidies of 28.7M and our total revenues of 46.2M then the subsidy % comes out to about you get 55.36% (I did some rounding). So I would say that is very close indeed but notice that I subtracted the 3 items from both the numerator and denominator.

JMU:

This is from an communication from Jeff Bourne:

http://jmusports.com/news/2016/9/1/bourn...tters.aspx

"For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, JMU generated over $35 million of its revenue from these student fees. The Cox Bill states that FCS programs such as JMU and William and Mary must rely on student fees for no more than 70% of its expenses. However, for purposes of these calculations, the legislation also provides for excluding certain expenses that I discussed above that JMU includes in its athletics budget – namely spirit groups, debt services (that were approved by the Commonwealth prior to June 30, 2015) and institutional service charges. After that consideration, JMU sits at 58 percent of its budget stemming from student fees, which is well below the Cox Bill requirement at the FCS level. Should the university have an invitation to an FBS conference to consider in the future, the Cox Bill requirement is 55 percent. In order to hit that mark, JMU would need to increase its athletics-generated revenue by $8.5 million by 2021-22. It is also worth noting that Virginia is one of just two states in the country that currently places this student fee limitation on its college athletics programs. Additionally, it is important to note that the new Convocation Center project was approved by the state prior to the Cox Bill and therefore is exempt from consideration."

58% ?!?!?!?? How'd he do that? USA Today stated they were at 80% subsidized that year. Let's look at their books.

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/JMUNCAA15.pdf

So using the same formula as I did above exempt items 9.8M, student fees 35.3M, total revenues 44.8M. Subtract 9.8 from both the subsidy and total and divide and you get 72.86%. Now let's just subtract the 9.8 from the subsidy then divide by the full revenues and you come out to........ 56.92% (If you don't round it comes out to the 58% he stated).

So.

I'm no lawyer but reading the law I think JMU's way is technically right (but maybe not the intent). And if you go back and redo ODU's the same way you'll find we've been at under 50% for many years. If ODU administration knows this they sure aren't letting on.

I still don't understand your argument.
In your example from 2015, the student athletic fees of $35,287,957 represented 78.7% of the total athletic expenditures of $44,825,701.
That is what JMU stated and provided to the Legislature, and what was expected based on reporting.

The percentage is similarly consistent within a few points through 2019. https://www.jmu.edu/financeoffice/accoun...ents.shtml

I am more interested as to how JMU athletic's expenditures-to-revenue reconciles right down to the last dollar every year.

(02-10-2020 03:01 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 02:30 PM)VB Monarch Wrote:  How do you account for the difference in athletic donations? JMU is a pretty well heeled school

A salient question. Usually (though not always) traditional-campus schools have a better alumni-engagement rate, including donations, than schools that are more commuter-based like ODU. They have a smaller alumni base but that alone wouldn't explain it, I don't think.

JMU was all female for a long time and mostly female until recently. I would think women would be less inclined overall to give to athletics. They will be fine in the long run now that they have almost 50% men and many come from more privileged families.

(02-10-2020 09:34 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  I still don't understand your argument.
In your example from 2015, the student athletic fees of $35,287,957 represented 78.7% of the total athletic expenditures of $44,825,701.
That is what JMU stated and provided to the Legislature, and what was expected based on reporting.

The percentage is similarly consistent within a few points through 2019. https://www.jmu.edu/financeoffice/accoun...ents.shtml

I am more interested as to how JMU athletic's expenditures-to-revenue reconciles right down to the last dollar every year.

The law states you can remove certain line items from the calculation. And those deductions are from the subsidy side of the equation. Because of this, JMUs allowed deduction is $9.8 million. So, the $35 million of student fees becomes $25.2 million. Divide that by $44.8m in revenue and you get to the 56% he cited.

(02-10-2020 09:34 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 05:30 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 03:41 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  Please elaborate

Ok. So I posted a link to the law as it was passed in an earlier post. It says that the subsidy percentage can't be above certain levels as we all know. It's how it defines subsidy percentage that is the kicker. Basically it says that it's the subsidy divided by total athletic revenues BUT you can reduce the subsidy by 3 line items that are found in the financial statements. It does not say the subsidy and the total athletic revenue. So as I mentioned earlier if you take something out of the numerator but not the denominator not only does it mathematically go against the idea percentages of a whole it will give you a much lower percentage.

ODU:

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...c0fc6.html

In this article Deputy athletic director Ken Brown (I had said Selig earlier) stated: "The good news is that we're very close to 55 percent now,". This article is from 9/12/17 so I'm going to assume he has the financial figures from the fiscal year ending 6/30/17 and use that year. Here they are:

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/OldD...AA2017.pdf

It that year USA Today showed us at 62% subsidized. According to the tax law we can remove from the athletic budget the following line items: Spirit Groups, Indirect costs paid to the institution by athletics and Athletic Facility Debt Services. This last is only for projects approved before June 30, 2015. It looks like we had a bond issued for less than 1 million for some Powhatan Center improvements in 2016 but the service on that would be pretty negligible for our purposes. So those three items add up to about 7 million. If you subtract that from our subsidies of 28.7M and our total revenues of 46.2M then the subsidy % comes out to about you get 55.36% (I did some rounding). So I would say that is very close indeed but notice that I subtracted the 3 items from both the numerator and denominator.

JMU:

This is from an communication from Jeff Bourne:

http://jmusports.com/news/2016/9/1/bourn...tters.aspx

"For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, JMU generated over $35 million of its revenue from these student fees. The Cox Bill states that FCS programs such as JMU and William and Mary must rely on student fees for no more than 70% of its expenses. However, for purposes of these calculations, the legislation also provides for excluding certain expenses that I discussed above that JMU includes in its athletics budget – namely spirit groups, debt services (that were approved by the Commonwealth prior to June 30, 2015) and institutional service charges. After that consideration, JMU sits at 58 percent of its budget stemming from student fees, which is well below the Cox Bill requirement at the FCS level. Should the university have an invitation to an FBS conference to consider in the future, the Cox Bill requirement is 55 percent. In order to hit that mark, JMU would need to increase its athletics-generated revenue by $8.5 million by 2021-22. It is also worth noting that Virginia is one of just two states in the country that currently places this student fee limitation on its college athletics programs. Additionally, it is important to note that the new Convocation Center project was approved by the state prior to the Cox Bill and therefore is exempt from consideration."

58% ?!?!?!?? How'd he do that? USA Today stated they were at 80% subsidized that year. Let's look at their books.

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/JMUNCAA15.pdf

So using the same formula as I did above exempt items 9.8M, student fees 35.3M, total revenues 44.8M. Subtract 9.8 from both the subsidy and total and divide and you get 72.86%. Now let's just subtract the 9.8 from the subsidy then divide by the full revenues and you come out to........ 56.92% (If you don't round it comes out to the 58% he stated).

So.

I'm no lawyer but reading the law I think JMU's way is technically right (but maybe not the intent). And if you go back and redo ODU's the same way you'll find we've been at under 50% for many years. If ODU administration knows this they sure aren't letting on.

I still don't understand your argument.
In your example from 2015, the student athletic fees of $35,287,957 represented 78.7% of the total athletic expenditures of $44,825,701.
That is what JMU stated and provided to the Legislature, and what was expected based on reporting.

The percentage is similarly consistent within a few points through 2019. https://www.jmu.edu/financeoffice/accoun...ents.shtml

I am more interested as to how JMU athletic's expenditures-to-revenue reconciles right down to the last dollar every year.

As Drunkard stated for the purpose of the Cox law the subsidy percentage is calculated differently. You can look at the law itself that I linked in an earlier post. Bourne also explains it in his statement and claims that their subsidy percentage in 2015 was 58% going by cox’s guidelines.

As far as how they net their books down to zero every year, if you read the notes of their financial statements they allocate the deficit to student fees until they get to zero. Basically they are going over the amount budgeted for student fees and are pulling the money from other sources. If you multiply the stated fees allocated to athletics by the enrollment numbers you come up well short.

You may be right that they have financially painted themselves into a corner as far as jumping to FBS. I think they might be able to do it but would have zero flexibility for raising coaches salaries and the like. I’m more concerned with ODU’s application of the Cox law. I hope we’re needlessly limiting ourselves due to a misreading of the law.

(02-10-2020 05:30 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(02-10-2020 03:41 PM)ODUalum78 Wrote:  Please elaborate

Ok. So I posted a link to the law as it was passed in an earlier post. It says that the subsidy percentage can't be above certain levels as we all know. It's how it defines subsidy percentage that is the kicker. Basically it says that it's the subsidy divided by total athletic revenues BUT you can reduce the subsidy by 3 line items that are found in the financial statements. It does not say the subsidy and the total athletic revenue. So as I mentioned earlier if you take something out of the numerator but not the denominator not only does it mathematically go against the idea percentages of a whole it will give you a much lower percentage.

ODU:

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...c0fc6.html

In this article Deputy athletic director Ken Brown (I had said Selig earlier) stated: "The good news is that we're very close to 55 percent now,". This article is from 9/12/17 so I'm going to assume he has the financial figures from the fiscal year ending 6/30/17 and use that year. Here they are:

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/OldD...AA2017.pdf

It that year USA Today showed us at 62% subsidized. According to the tax law we can remove from the athletic budget the following line items: Spirit Groups, Indirect costs paid to the institution by athletics and Athletic Facility Debt Services. This last is only for projects approved before June 30, 2015. It looks like we had a bond issued for less than 1 million for some Powhatan Center improvements in 2016 but the service on that would be pretty negligible for our purposes. So those three items add up to about 7 million. If you subtract that from our subsidies of 28.7M and our total revenues of 46.2M then the subsidy % comes out to about you get 55.36% (I did some rounding). So I would say that is very close indeed but notice that I subtracted the 3 items from both the numerator and denominator.

JMU:

This is from an communication from Jeff Bourne:

http://jmusports.com/news/2016/9/1/bourn...tters.aspx

"For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015, JMU generated over $35 million of its revenue from these student fees. The Cox Bill states that FCS programs such as JMU and William and Mary must rely on student fees for no more than 70% of its expenses. However, for purposes of these calculations, the legislation also provides for excluding certain expenses that I discussed above that JMU includes in its athletics budget – namely spirit groups, debt services (that were approved by the Commonwealth prior to June 30, 2015) and institutional service charges. After that consideration, JMU sits at 58 percent of its budget stemming from student fees, which is well below the Cox Bill requirement at the FCS level. Should the university have an invitation to an FBS conference to consider in the future, the Cox Bill requirement is 55 percent. In order to hit that mark, JMU would need to increase its athletics-generated revenue by $8.5 million by 2021-22. It is also worth noting that Virginia is one of just two states in the country that currently places this student fee limitation on its college athletics programs. Additionally, it is important to note that the new Convocation Center project was approved by the state prior to the Cox Bill and therefore is exempt from consideration."

58% ?!?!?!?? How'd he do that? USA Today stated they were at 80% subsidized that year. Let's look at their books.

http://www.apa.virginia.gov/reports/JMUNCAA15.pdf

So using the same formula as I did above exempt items 9.8M, student fees 35.3M, total revenues 44.8M. Subtract 9.8 from both the subsidy and total and divide and you get 72.86%. Now let's just subtract the 9.8 from the subsidy then divide by the full revenues and you come out to........ 56.92% (If you don't round it comes out to the 58% he stated).

So.

I'm no lawyer but reading the law I think JMU's way is technically right (but maybe not the intent). And if you go back and redo ODU's the same way you'll find we've been at under 50% for many years. If ODU administration knows this they sure aren't letting on.

It would certainly seem that way.
However, as you noted, the intent was supposedly to reduce the burden of student fees.

In that respect, based on this,

(02-10-2020 05:58 PM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  My daughter graduated from JMU and I was blown away by the student fees. This year tuition is right at $7,050/yr and mandatory student fees $4,950/yr. ODU's mandatory fees are almost $1,700 less, the tuition is about the same.

ODU has certainly complied with the spirit of the law, as I understand it.