By BudgetCoach on June 20, 2010
Sunday morning: My day began with a 5:50am text from my son which included a picture of him and his Dad getting ready to tee off in the Father’s Day Scramble at our club. It’s an awesome picture that is now the wallpaper on my phone.
This is where I whine (and I know CABMA had nothing to do with it – we are at the mercy of NACDA and their dates). Father’s Day? Really? Sunday? Really? I unfortunately missed a portion of the breakfast and inspirational talk by Chaplain Moore from GA Tech because I went to Mass. A long time friend and Buffalo transplant to SoCal picked me up and brought me to Mass. I am sorry I had to choose to miss one thing to do another. Am I alone in this?
Welcome breakfast and opening speaker: Derrick Moore – Georgia Tech Team Chaplain
Derrick is an inspiring speaker who doesn’t go to work to brick and mortar; he goes to work to flesh and blood
CABMA Annual Business Meeting: Frank Hardyman – Georgia Tech and President of CABMA
We have a surplus; 618 members; we would like to grow into DII and DIII and NAIA
I remember my first convention in Atlanta during the NCAA Convention. The discussion was about wrapping into NACDA and having the convention in June, rather than January. It was an interesting way to be introduced to the organization. There were many concerns regarding timing issues because June is closing at most schools. On the plus side, there is a support system with NACDA and they help with promotion, website and
It’s time to expand the Publicity committee and reach out through social media.
Introductions: It’s fun to hear where folks are from and what they do at their schools. We have a lot of rookies and I hope they know they are the future of the organization. I love seeing familiar faces who I usually only see once a year. An exception would be during various championships where I had the pleasure to cheer for the Gonzaga Zags at the NCAA Men’s Basketball 1st and 2nd Rounds in Buffalo this past March. I got to see Jared Hertz, Assistant AD/Business at a favored Jesuit institution, Gonzaga University there. I love when the phone rings and it is a CABMA colleague. Lately I “see” folks on Linkedin or Twitter. It is a great way for us to keep in touch and keep the relationships going. Follow me on Twitter: JudeCaserta, join my network on Linkedin at Jude Russo Caserta. Kevin Cleary, Publisher of Collegiate Directories is buying the world beer tonight. I think that is very nice of him.
Managing Consumer Fees to Impact Bottom Line Results: Folks from Paciolan, Derrick Magee, Assoc. AD – Business Operations, Cincinnati
Jane Kleinberger, founder of Paciolan is a dynamic speaker. She also knows how to have fun! They have had a CABMA presence for as long as I can remember. An important think I learned from Jane is that as long as you attend the sessions and participate in the program it is perfectly fine to have a good time!
The strategic use of fees: Gary Styve – Client Partner Paciolan Any ticket manager at any institution should be at this conference. The discussion here is to move past order charge fee only. It seems that most folks are getting accustomed to paying extra fees but as long as the customer is getting the bottom line price during the transaction it is generally accepted. Print at Home is an amazing way to reduce the window staff during games. These folks could then be assigned to generating more ticket sales.
Cincinnati – reviewing consumer fees to increase revenue: Jane, Derrick and Deana Itow, Client Partner Paciolan Print at Home seems to be the future favored delivery system but I have to tell you, there is nothing like a real ticket! So, do you frame a folded and ripped piece of paper? I guess I am old school!
Take Away Line: Jane: At the end of the day ticketing is an accounting sub-system!
Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza – good call!
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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Posted in Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, CABMA, Tickets Tagged business meeting, CABMA, NACDA, ncaa convention, promotion website, team chaplain, welcome breakfast
By BudgetCoach on May 27, 2010
Don’t get me wrong…I love money…when it’s mine. But, when it is laying on my desk in piles and envelopes it is just dirty paper and a huge responsibility.
A deposit must balance. Period. If you are off by 49 cents, find it. If you are off by $49, find it. If you are off by $49,000, find it (but the larger the error the easier the discovery). Just like I don’t like thinking about the germs in a hotel room I try not to think about the germs on money. Yuck! I have anti-bacterial wipes on my desk for washing during and after a deposit. My hands get almost black.
Sometimes I think that a person who handles cash has to be a lot like a healthcare worker. You need to care but not become attached. Segregation of duties is the single greatest way to avoid putting one person in a position of having too much power over any transaction. Checks and balances are hugely important. I am relentless with the folks I work with being sure they handle deposits according to the rules set down for everyone’s protection. A proper cash transaction protects everyone.
The last few years I have noticed that young people do not have much respect for cash. Often I get it folded, out of order and unorganized. I think this may be because many of them do not know how to make change. Computerized registers have taken away the arithmetic. I may sound like a curmudgeon but I identify this as a problem.
When I think about the $5,000 cash that was on my desk a few hours ago I will not allow myself to think about a trip to Europe or down payment on a new car. All it is dirty paper.
Please feel free to e-mail me if you would like to set up a consultation to analyze your program’s segregation of duties and cash business best practices.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, Cash & Deposits Tagged best practices, cash business, cash transaction, checks and balances, segregation of duties
By BudgetCoach on May 6, 2010
The most challenging balance in fund accounting (use it or lose it) is spending down your budget without going into deficit. It is particularly challenging this time of year as we come near our closing date approaching like a run-away train. We deficit spend so my charge is to be sure the sport cost centers have fund raising and camp funds to balance their deficit.
Let me rewind a bit. The last several years have not been easy in any business office no matter what the size of school, public or private, funded or tuition driven. Even if a school is blessed with stable enrollment they are still experiencing issues with rising costs things like health insurance and fuel.
We have been suffering through retrenchment the past few years. Our resources are shrinking and we have tried our best not to reduce the sport cost centers by taking the impact of cuts on the non-program areas.
In Athletics, the operating cost that seems to be rising more quickly than any other is the cost of officials. This year the per diem and transportation costs have elevated my officials cost by 25% in Women’s Basketball alone. I call this an unfunded mandate. What am I going to do, not pay them? Tempting when you think they miss calls but silliness aside, how do you manage this expense when you cut back budgets to begin with? The result is that we faced one set of budget cuts directed by the college and yet another necessary because of rising costs which are not supported in the budget.
This is another reason why I don’t sleep very well in May (see my last blog update to see what keeps me up at night http://tinyurl.com/385kfdx). I work so hard to manage budgets, creating a culture of fiscal integrity and it can all be undone by an expense which I have absolutely no control.
God I love my job!
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, Officials Tagged budget cuts, budgets, business office, closing date, fiscal integrity, fund accounting, health insurance, per diem, retrenchment, time of year, transportation costs, unfunded mandate
By BudgetCoach on May 3, 2010
I went to bed at 12:30am last night and got up at 5:15am. I got almost five hours of sleep (not bad for this time of year). The month of May should be so wonderful, especially in Western New York where spring is in full force with peaks at summer. For me it has the stress of year end mixed in with the anniversary of my first child’s death. Although my nearly four year old eldest child passed almost 22 years ago, the first two weeks are just sad for me. I droop around and feel a general malaise. Someday I will have a job where I do not feel this stress. Or, better yet, after I retire I will not worry about:
- Did everyone get paid the amount they were supposed to get paid?
- Are we going to receive all of the things we have ordered before the year-end cut-off or are we going to have to carry the expense into next year?
- Am I going to collect enough revenue to cover my budget deficit?
- Why do I deficit spend? I actually know the answer to this one but it doesn’t prevent it from keeping me up at night this time of year.
- Can I get all of the late conference championship expenses into this year?
- Why don’t I have a championship budget? I know the answer to this one, as well. However I have yet to convince upper management that I may be able to get a few more hours sleep during closing if I had one.
- Are “those coaches” who promised revenue going to collect before EOY in order to balance their budgets?
- Will all of the coaches get Letters of Appointment information to me in a timely fashion so I can set them up for payment on June 1st?
- Did I over estimate remaining expenses (good thing) and under estimate revenue collection (another good thing)?
- And, the one that gets me every year even though I have planned ahead – why do I personalize this so that it keeps me up at night?
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, Mid Major Experience, Time Management Tagged budget deficit, budgets, eoy, general malaise, hours of sleep, letters of appointment, stress, time of year, year end
By BudgetCoach on April 29, 2010
I got an e-mail the other day from a woman I had never met regarding her mother. I connected with this woman 12-15 years ago (I honestly cannot remember) online and we became part of an e-mail group which grew from receiving a quote everyday to learning about their families, happiness and hurt in their lives. We created our own Facebook/MySpace/Twitter years before the craze. This particular e-mail was to inform us that her mom “had passed and had gone to heaven.” How do you respond to this, from a woman I did not know about a woman I had never met yet felt deep sadness to know a member of our group, a lovely wife and mother, was gone? I responded by telling her how I “met” her mom and how knowing her impacted my life. She told me she knew about me, too. Rather than being creeped out, I was happy to know Julie shared her experience with our online group with her family.
It got me thinking…here was a situation where this woman continued to receive e-mails after her death. This must happen all of the time. That is what creeped me out! I decided to do some things at home to alleviate any burden on my family if such an event should happen unexpectedly. After that, I came up with a short list of things to do at work to cover my bases in case I get hit by a meteor.
- Make a notebook of websites with usernames and passwords. I know, I know, never ever write these things down. The way I look at it, if someone wants to know how to log into The Chronicle of Higher Education, well, so be it! I understand that many of the websites I work with have sensitive personal information like social security numbers and addresses (official assignor websites). Someone must still know how to access this information. Group them logically.
- Make sure you are not the only person who can open your safe. Obviously the fewer people who can access the safe the better but too few can be just as worrisome.
- Clearly label your file cabinets. I am anal about this so I guess I must have subliminally known this all along!
- Create office “Sparknotes.” Get a twelve month calendar (you can easily print templates online) and enter major reports and events first. Fill in with seasonal tasks then monthly repetitive tasks. Then make a list of things you do every week (ex. Log in purchases which have been received).
- Have a backup of supplies. When I open a box of printer toner I write my name on it and give it to our administrative assistant who then orders it for me. It goes in my closet until the next time so I am never out of important supplies.
There may be more important things to do at your office. This list is really just a beginning – a way to get you thinking that you really do not work in a vacuum. As depressing it may be, things happen every day that can prevent us from doing our jobs. Rather that worry while convalescing from the meteor strike, have some things in order all of the time for peace of mind.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, NCAA Agreed-Upon Procedures, Officials, Time Management Tagged chronicle of higher education, file cabinets, mail group, meteor, notebook, usernames and passwords
By BudgetCoach on April 13, 2010
This is a quick primer of what makes up a sport budget.
On the college level budgets are a combination of three main areas: Scholarships, salaries and operating. I have found that on the midmajor level at a private school they are roughly equal.
Scholarships: the NCAA has maximum numbers for each sport. The athletic conference may have a different maximum but it will never be higher than the NCAA. Athletic conferences may also impose minimum scholarship numbers. Schools can award these scholarships to individual student athletes or give partial scholarships to a greater number of SA’s. Only Men’s & Women’s Basketball and the largest programs give one to one. Football and Hockey at the top level also usually award aid one to one. Most midmajor schools divide the athletic aid among as many SA’s as they can in order to maximize the roster.
Salaries: contracts are awarded to coaches by the institution. It is rare that a coach is hired without a multi-year contract. Often, along with base pay, there are performance based incentives for winning as well as student athlete performance. Some coaches have an incentive for graduating student athletes. Many coaches at the higher levels have radio and television pay as well as clothing/shoe manufacturing bonuses. With all of these items it is a real chess game when a coach is let go or leaves for another school.
Operating: the main areas of operating are team travel, recruiting, equipment and clothing, game operation and general operations. General operations would include things like telephone, postage and printing. Game operations would include game official costs, the fastest growing expense in our athletic department.
In the future I will write more detailed blogs on the specifics of operating budgets.
Please let me know if I can be of any service to you or your team as you develop athletic budgets.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, Mid Major Experience Tagged athletic conferences, budgets, chess game, game official, game operations, private school, salaries, Student Athlete, student athletes, Team Travel, twitter
By BudgetCoach on April 12, 2010
When you are a one man band (one woman band in my case!) you do everything in the business office. For about 17 of my 20 years I worked entirely alone. As a result, I learned a lot about college athletics through the cash trail.
Any parent with children who play sports knows how expensive it can be. Fortunately for me, my son swims. A Speedo and goggles and you have the basics for competition. Hockey, on the other hand, is very expensive (and ice time is hugely inconvenient but that’s another story).
Here are a few interesting, and in some cases unusual, things I have purchased for our program:
Catching and blocking gloves – I am a hockey fan but never took the time to see the difference between the two goalie gloves. The blocker is less expensive than a catcher.
Air launcher – I never liked the idea of buying one of those guns that launches t-shirts. I was convinced that the $3,000 weapon was going to knock someone out or “poke an eye out!” Turns out I had no need to worry. It broke after a few games and the rocket-scientist AD who approved the purchase neglected to research the fact there was no warranty.
Sequins and glue gun – Synchronized swimming needed to decorate their caps for a meet.
Mascot costume – talk about real money! As a side note, the dry cleaner gives Petey (Short for St. Peter Canisius, S.J.) a great bath for only $12!
White Pucks – this one I thought was positively brilliant! The coach uses these pucks during practice to help the players handle the puck. You have to really keep your eye on the puck in order to follow it on the ice.
Underwater sound system – synchro needs to hear the music underwater, as well!
What is the most unusual thing you have purchased? Let us know!
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, About Athletic Business, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, Purchasing Tagged air launcher, athletic business, business manager, glue gun, goalie gloves, hockey fan, linkedin, real money, rocket scientist, speedo, st peter canisius, twitter, underwater sound system
By BudgetCoach on April 8, 2010
It’s nearly hockey playoffs and I’ve got hockey jargon on my mind. Go Sabres!
I don’t know if I should get two minutes for too many e-mails in my mailbox, five minutes for fighting with my laundry or a ten minute work misconduct for not getting enough done before I went away! Seriously! Why does going on vacation add more stress than relieve it sometimes?
I worked late into the night before I went away and on Sunday before my trip. I was only at our condo in Florida but decided to ignore most of my e-mail. Was that a mistake? My inbox is giving me ageda, I don’t want to see my mail and I missed a deadline while I was away. Bad me. Bad bad me.
I just want to run away from home but that solution will only make me further behind at work.
There are less than two months left in our fiscal year at work. In that time I must balance the budgets. That means being sure all of the travel has been paid, purchase orders have been reconciled (all purchases must be received and inventoried) and any wish list items purchased and received (we may have managed so well this year that we have a few bucks to spend). I have journal entries to complete and have to translate all of this information to the Controller.
In addition, I must be sure that items for the beginning of the year are ready. This includes phone reimbursements, letters of appointment, tuition waivers and budget sheets.
What am I doing here writing my blog? I need to get to work!
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
Twitter: JudeCaserta Linkedin: Jude Russo Caserta
E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, Time Management Tagged budgets, hockey playoffs, journal entries, letters of appointment, linkedin, reimbursements, stress, tuition waivers, twitter
By BudgetCoach on March 26, 2010
Ok, so it’s the first actual real time I spoke at a conference. I’ve lead round tables before but being responsible for an actual session was a first for me. Here is what I learned:
There is no such thing as being over prepared. I was ready and it showed.
If the session is 1 hour and 15 minutes assume it is going to start late and people will want it to end early. I had about 1 hour of material which turned out to be an hour and 5 minutes during my run through. People asked questions during the session which was great but it knocked me off of my time. I am glad they felt comfortable asking so I must have been approachable so from now on I will only have about 50 minutes of material for an hour and 15 minutes.
Power Point is a great tool and Presentation View is wonderful. It was great seeing my notes on the monitor while everyone saw the slides. The timer and time of day was fantastic. Way to go Microsoft!
Printing and binding my slides allowed me to walk around the room with my notes in hand and the remote control for my laptop allowed me to change the slides from anywhere in the room.
Practicing the presentation out loud helps with timing.
Simple slides allowed me to control how much or how little I needed to talk given the time constraints.
I need to practice my timing more the next time.
My church voice carries so my regular voice was plenty powerful to speak without a microphone.
A good night sleep and no distractions in the morning helped me feel prepared.
And last, the thing I learned that I will carry forward always: I love speaking and hope to have more opportunities to do it and have fun with it.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, Athletic Business Best Practices, Speaking Tagged CABMA, eacubo, good night sleep, microphone, power point, presentation view, slides, Speaking, time constraints
By BudgetCoach on March 15, 2010
The players are still pumped, the students are doing what students do (what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas) and the boosters are liquored up (away from the students, of course – no alcohol with the students!). Your selection party was not on television unless you were one of the dream teams or a school that made the tournament either for the first time since it began in 1939 or since Eisenhower was President.
If you look carefully enough you may just see the team staff and administrators gather in a football like huddle, do a cheer and yell break. The work is just beginning and each disperses to do the jobs assigned prior to selection. The coaching staff immediately begins to scout their opponent and begin many nights with little sleep. Athletic Communications aid in the immediate interviews and schedule more in depth ones for the next few days. No matter what level conference (mid-major or power) the Athletic Communications staff can turn the media circus into a media ballet, finely choreographed and expertly timed.
The administrative staff must determine the travel date or dates. Each team must be at the competition site by at least a full day before their game. Often when a team is traveling over a certain distance they are able to get a waiver to travel a day early. When this happens the non-basketball staff usually travels a day later. Schools have a choice of traveling coach or chartering a plane. The “big guys” may even have their own plane but we won’t let jealousy get in the middle of our discussion here.
If a team is secure in their selection (“big guys” again) or received an automatic qualifier they can pre-register their travel party at a secure site with Shorts Travel, the agency who does all of the travel for the tournament. This way, when the brackets are announced they don’t have to scramble for names and dates. When Canisius College went to the tournament in 1996 I worked until about 3:00am in our office sending and receiving faxes from the travel agency. Back then we did not have automated systems but we also did not have to deal with post 911 issues, either. If you really want to know about the rules of team travel here is a tiny URL that leads to a public part of the NCAA site http://tinyurl.com/ykffx6q.
The biggest surprise, however, during that whole 3:00am adrenaline rush work session was the fax we received charging us for 300 single session tickets. We got a bill for over $10,000 as a “welcome to the tournament” gift. A team like Duke needs 100’s or 1,000’s more. A team like Canisius College wonders what the heck you do with 300 tickets at a site nearly 1,400 miles from home. In the next segment of my blog I will talk about that block of 300 tickets.
Once the number of travel days was established it was my job to calculate how much it would cost to feed everyone in the travel party. I talked about planning for success http://tinyurl.com/yj8t4qs a few weeks back. In the case of the tournament I planned the per diem meal expense as if we won the first game and were staying the whole weekend. There is no point talking about David and Goliath here but suffice to say, we traveled home the day after the first round.
I literally had a brief case filled with money precisely counted and in marked envelopes. Each member of the travel party would receive an envelope through the first game and the remainder would be in the hotel safe. The Director of Public Safety was my bodyguard. It was a very interesting experience which I would welcome the opportunity to do again.
Flight lists, rooming lists and ground transportation were settled and booked. It was time to pack and get ready to go to the dance.
Coming next: We Made It – what it is like when you arrive at the site
Coming after: What About All of that Money We Were Supposed to Make?
See also: Life of an NCAA Team Host: http://tinyurl.com/yhk9bvq
Party of 75: http://tinyurl.com/yjprbq6
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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Posted in A Budget Coach's life in Sports, Athletic administrator, athletic business manager, College Athletics, General ABC Information, Mid Major Experience, Team Travel
