What we don't know: How we account for "profit" or how we alocate "profit" $$$.
For tl;dnr: we say we have a profit, but we really don't.
I'm not an accountant. However, I don't think we really have a "profit".
As has been discussed on here, K-State counts all donations made during the year even if some of the money is pledged and won't be received until some future year. For example, for WSC assume donors in the luxury boxes had to make a 5 year commitment... they've given cash to K-State for year 1, but won't give K-State the money for years 2 through 5 until the future. However, K-State is counting all of that cash in the current year.
If the pledge was for $100,000 per year for 5 years, K-State is counting all $500,000 in the current year even though we've only received $100,000 in cash. The remaining $400,000 will come later even though we're counting it now.
I think that's where our profit appears. We say on the financial statements that we had revenue of $60-some million, but the amount of cash we received is somewhat less than that. IMO, it's highly likely that we're spending every dollar we have. If our total expenses are $50-some million, that probably means our total cash received for the year is also $50-some million. The difference or "profit" are the other pledges we counted as revenue this year even though we haven't actually received the cash yet.
For the people complaining about a freaking $30 student fee, don't worry. No one in the Ath Dept is lining their pockets with your cash. Every penny that comes into the Ath Dept is being spent.
