BC Soccer: 24% of Annual Expenditure goes on Accommodations & Meals and Travel!

[CoachRich]

I could buy a decent house in Vancouver on $1,168,900 this!!!!

posted at www.bcsoccerweb.com

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The Association recently published on their website a Statement of Operation for All Divisions For the Eight Months Ending November 30, 2010. This document reveals that 24% ($1,168,900) of their $4.8 million 2010-11 annual expenditure budget is spent on Accommodations & Travels and Meals. This represents approximately $9 per registered player in BC. One has to wonder who is going where, how often and for what reason?

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Here's the paperwork as the BCSA site is down.......wonder why

See page 7

bcsa_2011Jan22_Finance CommitteeDetailedReports.pdf

or

click here

[Richard]

The financial report is now available off the BC Soccer Web server via the headline "BC Soccer: 24% of Annual Expenditure goes on Accommodation & Meals and Travel"

[The Ref]

That is $146,000 per month! Would love to see a breakdown by director and staff member.

[kj52]

I could buy a decent house in Vancouver on $1,168,900 this!!!!

posted at www.bcsoccerweb.com

------------

The Association recently published on their website a Statement of Operation for All Divisions For the Eight Months Ending November 30, 2010. This document reveals that 24% ($1,168,900) of their $4.8 million 2010-11 annual expenditure budget is spent on Accommodations & Travels and Meals. This represents approximately $9 per registered player in BC. One has to wonder who is going where, how often and for what reason?

------------

Here's the paperwork as the BCSA site is down.......wonder why

See page 7

[ATTACH]315[/ATTACH]

or

click here

As a comparison ASA's 2008 Budget had about 36% of budget for player development ($1.2 mil) which consisted for the most part of travel, meals and accommodation for the various select teams and those traveling with them. It also included equipment, staff expense allocations, etc. About half the funding came from the general membership player fees and a good part of the rest was player funded. Although the totals for the rest of Board travel expenses for other events and meetings aren't totaled up separately, a quick look showed that they weren't particularly large in comparison.

[Richard]

That's why we need some transparency on this from BC Soccer because as it stands it looks very bad.

[Vic]

My first guess was the provincial teams too Karl, but if it's like here in Ontario the kids pay for everything (including the costs of all the OSA staff that go with them) so that wouldn't amount to anything near that.

A lot of people think accounting is forensic but it's actually more of a play set. You could take these costs (meals, accommodations, transportation) and put them under travel, teams, employee benefits, program costs, operating expenses, etc. Published financials are a 10,000 foot view. To find where money is actually spent you need to look at a full set of books.

I'll give the BCSA one thing, they are to be commended for their transparency as a publicly-funded organization. They don't hide everything in broad general categories. That takes a lot of guts and courage.

For example, the CSA breaks down their expenses like this:

2.8 Senior teams

1.4 Youth teams

1.8 Office of the Technical Director

1.6 Technical

1.4 Marketing

0.4 Events

1.9 Competitions

1.6 Admin & Meetings

The OSA is even more vague:

3.3 Programs

2.6 CSA Fees

1.6 Membership Services

0.9 Corporate

0.4 Organization & Projects

0.3 Play Soccer

0.1 Amortization

As with the BC travel/meals - transparency definitely makes you accountable for your actions. You may pay the price for that a few times but it keeps you on the straight and narrow and makes you a lot better candidate for self-governance.

The quote that comes to mind is "craft loves to wear clothes but truth loves to go naked."

[The Ref]

Sorry to somewhat disagree with you Vic regarding "accounting being a play set". As a Accountant myself I need to defend my profession. Accounting is a system of recording transactions according a series of principles and doing so consistently for the purpose of providing the necessary information to manage activities and inform others.

[Vic]

Ah yes, the GAAP. How you record your expenditures on a financial statement is a good example of the term 'creative accounting'. Here we have three different organizations essentially performing the same function with three entirely different methodologies for reporting how they spend money.

[kj52]

Ah yes, the GAAP. How you record your expenditures on a financial statement is a good example of the term 'creative accounting'. Here we have three different organizations essentially performing the same function with three entirely different methodologies for reporting how they spend money.

Many of the details for ASA expenses are normally not available, the year that I'm citing was a result of the Financial Director (Innes) not being able to produce an acceptable budget so several of the accounting worksheets (except those with confidential information) were supplied to the membership so they could see a more detailed breakdown which did aid in the members approving a budget, albeit several months late. Transparency can work wonders.

[peterv]

That's why we need some transparency on this from BC Soccer because as it stands it looks very bad.

Would you care to elaborate? Overall costs are down and revenue is up. If the 24% percent is the problem, then what would you say if BCSA cut its admin costs and the travel money spent on youth and adult soccer team travel increased to 35% of the total.

BCSA does spend money sending staff and Directors to Ottawa for CSA, one is on the Board and some are on CSA Committees. BCSA also spends a lot servicing members all over BC, ( there are 9 District Development Centres outside the lower mainland) and there are ongoing coaching and referee courses around the province. There are BCSA Board Directors who live in the north and on Vancouver iIsland who have a right to travel to Vancouver for Board meetings. This is part of the cost of democracy.

The biggest travel expense (flights, hotels and meals) is for 120 players on the Provincial all-star teams. The parents of those players pay several thousand extra for that experience, and all that money is part of the 24%.

[Richard]

^ Fair enough, but what you're doing is informally providing some of the kind of transparency I am looking for. BCSA should include a breakdown of such a major expense in an addendum to the financials. Without it that $1,168,900 number is staggering. It's probably staggering even with a breakdown, especially when you see that it represents approximately 39% of player registration fees and levies which went up last year or the year before and are going up again next year - hence the revenue increase to which you refer! Let's have a list of all the trips taken, what is the per diem for these people doing all the travelling that accounts for this expense, what hotels are they staying in? This is a non-profit organisation we're talking about here, every penny should be accounted for to members.

I have to ask also, why does BC Soccer need a Director of Operations when they already have an Executive Director? Just how much directing is really necessary at the administration level for a $4.8 million per year operation?

Paul Mullen Named Director of Operations

[Vic]

This is part of the cost of democracy.

If you asked the parents of kids who play soccer if they would like to pay extra for our national teams and 70 full-time jobs in Ontario (30 CSA, 40 OSA) you would get a 98% negative response.

I don't know the answer. But it's certainly not democracy.

[kj52]

If you asked the parents of kids who play soccer if they would like to pay extra for our national teams and 70 full-time jobs in Ontario (30 CSA, 40 OSA) you would get a 98% negative response.

I don't know the answer. But it's certainly not democracy.

Completely agree, plus having sat and listened at different times to Maestracci, Montagliani, Reed and Peter Montpoli all making the case for those parents to pay extra fees to CSA, I have to say that with the exception of Peter's presentation, those parents would be very justified in their negative response. It would be interesting to know how much it cost us to have those 3 CSA Board members fly around the country turning people off.

[peterv]

^ Fair enough, but what you're doing is informally providing some of the kind of transparency I am looking for. BCSA should include a breakdown of such a major expense in an addendum to the financials. Without it that $1,168,900 number is staggering. It's probably staggering even with a breakdown, especially when you see that it represents approximately 39% of player registration fees and levies which went up last year or the year before and are going up again next year - hence the revenue increase to which you refer! Let's have a list of all the trips taken, what is the per diem for these people doing all the travelling that accounts for this expense, what hotels are they staying in? This is a non-profit organisation we're talking about here, every penny should be accounted for to members.

I have to ask also, why does BC Soccer need a Director of Operations when they already have an Executive Director? Just how much directing is really necessary at the administration level for a $4.8 million per year operation?

Paul Mullen Named Director of Operations

Richard, the roles of new Director of Operations and the ED will be clarified in the comng months, however one of the new Director's roles is sponsorship revenue raising.

With regard to per diems. BCSA pays $9 for breakfast, $12 for lunch and $19 for dinner, and that includes HST. How do those rates compare to other organizations?

[Richard]

I have no idea how those rates compare but $1.6 million represents one helluva lot of airfares, hotel stays, mileage allowance and meals, especially for an organisation with gross revenues of $4.8 million and that is requiring another substantial increase in player registration fees next year.

[CoachRich]

If I remember right, last year Claudia was promoted to Director of Business Development of which sponsorship was part of her portfolio. Do we need that much overlap up top when they still haven't replaced the Communications Coordinator and Member Programs Assistant? These vacant positions were 2 very key long term employees. How much is the new DOO Paul Mullen going to cost and how long are these very important member related positions gong to stay vacant?

While I'm asking questions...... How about the member system? It's been, what 3 years and looking at the budget it's probably a good portion of the consultants and office expense. Maybe $150K of that. That's a lot of $ when the BCSA could have got a out of the box system like Bonzi that is used in the soccer community in the USA. FSI to take 3 years is a bit like the Canadian gun registry IMO.

I agree with Richard that the "$1.6 million represents one helluva lot of airfares, hotel stays, mileage allowance and meals, especially for an organisation with gross revenues of $4.8 million". Maybe it's time to write the ED and the President?

[peterv]

I have no idea how those rates compare but $1.6 million represents one helluva lot of airfares, hotel stays, mileage allowance and meals, especially for an organisation with gross revenues of $4.8 million and that is requiring another substantial increase in player registration fees next year.

Since no-one has suggested the per diems are too high, it may mean they are reasonable. I feel the per diem rates are reasonable.

Last year the delegates at the AGM voted to raise fees by 3% for 2011/12, which is not a substantial increase. Full financial details will be presented at the AGM in June, including details about the approximately $1m which BCSA pays to the CSA..

[CoachRich]

What players pay to the NSO ($11.00) and PSO ($20.00 excluding NSO fee) is way to high when you consider that a US player pays only $2.00 to the USSF.

[Richard]

Since no-one has suggested the per diems are too high, it may mean they are reasonable. I feel the per diem rates are reasonable.

Last year the delegates at the AGM voted to raise fees by 3% for 2011/12, which is not a substantial increase. Full financial details will be presented at the AGM in June, including details about the approximately $1m which BCSA pays to the CSA.

The meal allowances you quote are not unreasonable but what is the daily hotel allowance and how much goes on airfares and how much to assist teams going to Nationals? If that too is reasonable then who is going where, how often and what for because then that's even more trips than I had originally calculated. Also, if we remove the approximately $1 million that goes to the CSA from the $4.8 million budget then the percentage of the total expenditure budget spent on travel, accommodation and meals goes even higher relatively which really just further reinforces my argument. And CoachRich makes very valid points about the important positions that have been vacant so long and the player registration system that was promised years ago and is still not functioning. Have to wonder how much money has been spent on it so far, directly and indirectly. We don't see that spelled out in the financial statement either but it must represent a significant amount of money. Come to think of it, maybe the BCSA really does need more help with 'operations management' which prompts more interesting questions?