Football scoop article on Chuckles contract

[TheAccountant]

The terms surrounding the Strong contract seem sketchy to me at best. These articles lead one to believe that Harlan signed CCS with one contract through the University, which would be subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore public record) and then turned around and had him agree to a second contract through the University's private foundation that is not subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore not public record). Is this common practice at other Universities? Typically if someone does something to try to get around public disclosure, it is something they shouldn't be doing. It would be interesting to see if the Board of Trustees (BOT) were wise to this agreement.

**Warning** about to bore you with financial information...

As of 6/30/2017 the Foundation has a total of $595,126,655 in net assets, however $224,788,997 of that is temporarily restricted (must be held for a certain amount of time or spent on a donor-specified purpose) and $356,817,473 is permanently restricted (aka endowments, which are typically invested and cannot be spent). That only leaves around $13,520,185 in unrestricted net assets (funds can be spent on whatever the Board of Trustees approves).  Of the $13.5m unrestricted net assets, $9,732,783 is tied up in land, building, and equipment. This means that at best, the Foundation only has around $3,787,402 of truly unrestricted net assets that could be spent on a CCS buyout. So if his buyout truly is $7.5m as has been floated around this forum, we are most likely going to be stuck with him unless another school takes him off of our hands (not likely). 

 

USF Foundation 6/30/2017 Fiscal Year Form 990

[Drewski]

27 minutes ago, TheAccountant said:

The terms surrounding the Strong contract seem sketchy to me at best. These articles lead one to believe that Harlan signed CCS with one contract through the University, which would be subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore public record) and then turned around and had him agree to a second contract through the University's private foundation that is not subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore not public record). Is this common practice at other Universities? Typically if someone does something to try to get around public disclosure, it is something they shouldn't be doing. It would be interesting to see if the Board of Trustees (BOT) were wise to this agreement.

**Warning** about to bore you with financial information...

As of 6/30/2017 the Foundation has a total of $595,126,655 in net assets, however $224,788,997 of that is temporarily restricted (must be held for a certain amount of time or spent on a donor-specified purpose) and $356,817,473 is permanently restricted (aka endowments, which are typically invested and cannot be spent). That only leaves around $13,520,185 in unrestricted net assets (funds can be spent on whatever the Board of Trustees approves).  Of the $13.5m unrestricted net assets, $9,732,783 is tied up in land, building, and equipment. This means that at best, the Foundation only has around $3,787,402 of truly unrestricted net assets that could be spent on a CCS buyout. So if his buyout truly is $7.5m as has been floated around this forum, we are most likely going to be stuck with him unless another school takes him off of our hands (not likely). 

 

USF Foundation 6/30/2017 Fiscal Year Form 990

User name checks out 

[Bullrush33]

32 minutes ago, TheAccountant said:

The terms surrounding the Strong contract seem sketchy to me at best. These articles lead one to believe that Harlan signed CCS with one contract through the University, which would be subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore public record) and then turned around and had him agree to a second contract through the University's private foundation that is not subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore not public record). Is this common practice at other Universities? Typically if someone does something to try to get around public disclosure, it is something they shouldn't be doing. It would be interesting to see if the Board of Trustees (BOT) were wise to this agreement.

**Warning** about to bore you with financial information...

As of 6/30/2017 the Foundation has a total of $595,126,655 in net assets, however $224,788,997 of that is temporarily restricted (must be held for a certain amount of time or spent on a donor-specified purpose) and $356,817,473 is permanently restricted (aka endowments, which are typically invested and cannot be spent). That only leaves around $13,520,185 in unrestricted net assets (funds can be spent on whatever the Board of Trustees approves).  Of the $13.5m unrestricted net assets, $9,732,783 is tied up in land, building, and equipment. This means that at best, the Foundation only has around $3,787,402 of truly unrestricted net assets that could be spent on a CCS buyout. So if his buyout truly is $7.5m as has been floated around this forum, we are most likely going to be stuck with him unless another school takes him off of our hands (not likely). 

 

USF Foundation 6/30/2017 Fiscal Year Form 990

Doesn't the contract also say that we can pay out over time similar to what we did with skippy?

[TheAccountant]

2 minutes ago, Bullrush33 said:

Doesn't the contract also say that we can pay out over time similar to what we did with skippy?

I have not read the contract with USF athletics, so that is a possibility. The problem is that it sounds like there is a second agreement with the USF foundation that is not public record, and therefore nobody knows the details surrounding it.

[bullstampede9922]

I'm guessing at the time, Harlan really wanted Strong and the only way to get him here was to set it up this way.  I think the Foundation is going to be on the hook for a big payout if he's fired.

[DELdaBull]

Salary next year and the following year is 5.3 M.

Of that 1M is USF base salary.  

So Foundation owes him at max 4.3M for the final 2 years. 

USF owes him 192k if fired. 

So at max he would walk away with 4.5M to not coach the next 2 years. 

 

Someone do the math on his coaching staff.  

 

[Bull Dozer]

1 hour ago, TheAccountant said:

The terms surrounding the Strong contract seem sketchy to me at best. These articles lead one to believe that Harlan signed CCS with one contract through the University, which would be subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore public record) and then turned around and had him agree to a second contract through the University's private foundation that is not subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore not public record). Is this common practice at other Universities? Typically if someone does something to try to get around public disclosure, it is something they shouldn't be doing. It would be interesting to see if the Board of Trustees (BOT) were wise to this agreement.

**Warning** about to bore you with financial information...

As of 6/30/2017 the Foundation has a total of $595,126,655 in net assets, however $224,788,997 of that is temporarily restricted (must be held for a certain amount of time or spent on a donor-specified purpose) and $356,817,473 is permanently restricted (aka endowments, which are typically invested and cannot be spent). That only leaves around $13,520,185 in unrestricted net assets (funds can be spent on whatever the Board of Trustees approves).  Of the $13.5m unrestricted net assets, $9,732,783 is tied up in land, building, and equipment. This means that at best, the Foundation only has around $3,787,402 of truly unrestricted net assets that could be spent on a CCS buyout. So if his buyout truly is $7.5m as has been floated around this forum, we are most likely going to be stuck with him unless another school takes him off of our hands (not likely). 

 

USF Foundation 6/30/2017 Fiscal Year Form 990

Yes this is common practice for universities to protect themselves from public records laws and limit damages in liability cases. 

[Bulls On Parade]

Well the one plus is if we did go after a younger up and coming offensive OC for the HC job they likely cost much less than Strong. 

 

[bullsbucsfan426]

19 minutes ago, Bull Dozer said:

Yes this is common practice for universities to protect themselves from public records laws and limit damages in liability cases. 

 

1 hour ago, TheAccountant said:

The terms surrounding the Strong contract seem sketchy to me at best. These articles lead one to believe that Harlan signed CCS with one contract through the University, which would be subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore public record) and then turned around and had him agree to a second contract through the University's private foundation that is not subject to the Sunshine Law (and therefore not public record). Is this common practice at other Universities? Typically if someone does something to try to get around public disclosure, it is something they shouldn't be doing. It would be interesting to see if the Board of Trustees (BOT) were wise to this agreement.

**Warning** about to bore you with financial information...

As of 6/30/2017 the Foundation has a total of $595,126,655 in net assets, however $224,788,997 of that is temporarily restricted (must be held for a certain amount of time or spent on a donor-specified purpose) and $356,817,473 is permanently restricted (aka endowments, which are typically invested and cannot be spent). That only leaves around $13,520,185 in unrestricted net assets (funds can be spent on whatever the Board of Trustees approves).  Of the $13.5m unrestricted net assets, $9,732,783 is tied up in land, building, and equipment. This means that at best, the Foundation only has around $3,787,402 of truly unrestricted net assets that could be spent on a CCS buyout. So if his buyout truly is $7.5m as has been floated around this forum, we are most likely going to be stuck with him unless another school takes him off of our hands (not likely). 

 

USF Foundation 6/30/2017 Fiscal Year Form 990

Thinking here as the other CPA on this board-

There's no guarantee that his contract isn't part of the temporarily restricted assets. Given the arms race in college football, I wouldn't be shocked if fundraising to endow or raise money for coaching positions is part of the deal. Seeing as they have to revise the accounting every year for a lower buyout, I could have seen them releasing temporarily restricted net assets every year to lower the liability. 

 

[Bull Dozer]

3 minutes ago, bullsbucsfan426 said:

 

Thinking here as the other CPA on this board-

There's no guarantee that his contract isn't part of the temporarily restricted assets. Given the arms race in college football, I wouldn't be shocked if fundraising to endow or raise money for coaching positions is part of the deal. Seeing as they have to revise the accounting every year for a lower buyout, I could have seen them releasing temporarily restricted net assets every year to lower the liability. 

 

I should have phrased more clearly liability damages, ie the Plancher case at UCF.  There's a damages cap for these kind of associations from what I understand.