The petition
The purpose of this petition is to rally support for the creation of individual financial accounts for each Club Sports team. Under the current system, all Club Sports teams income and expenses are lumped together in one complicated and disorganized account. Expenses can easily be charged to the wrong team - it happened to Men's Lacrosse!
For teams to be able to make decisions based on accurate and current financial information, each team needs a unique account. Although your team may not have run into problems due to these low accounting standards, I encourage you to address the problem prior to any issues. Individual accounts would have the following three benefits:
1) Creation of general ledger reports. As accounts that generate a fair amount of income and expense activity, Club Sports teams need the ability to reconcile their financial activity against the official record keeper. It is important to note that the accounting done at the department level (Rec Sports) is NOT the official record keeper of the University, but acts as a shadow system to the general ledger produced by the Accounting office. A shadow accounting system does not determine the actual balance of an account, it merely attempts to mimic it for audit purposes. Club Sports teams should be able to review the income and expenses posted on the department shadow system, incorporating their own anticipated expenses, and reconcile that against the official record keeper. It would be financially irresponsible if those most familiar with the activity were not able to review the official record.
2) Fund accounting best practices recommends that funds with restricted purpose are assigned individual accounts. When Club Sports teams receive income from their donors, the money is expressly allocated for expenses related only to that team. However, these funds are currently being co-mingled with all other club sports teams. If Men’s Lacrosse runs an overdraft for the year, it is not allowed to take money from the Crew team (for example), yet they share the same account. This puts a large liability on Rec Sports for isolating and tracking these funds within a common account. This situation is analogous to depositing a paycheck in a Wells Fargo account shared with a stranger, with each person writing out checks for rent. Certainly, this is not best practice.
3) The goal of any successful Club Sport team should be to eventually become a varsity program. Club Sports at UCSB have enjoyed great success over the history of their programs, and because of such, many of the teams have expenses on par with varsity sports. At UCSB, varsity sports each have their own account in the same manner this petition is requesting. For the Club Sports teams to continue to operate in a successful, professional way, they need to perform in a manner consistent with varsity programs. At the lowest level, this means creating individual accounts for each team.
The creation of individual accounts is an extremely simple process. Please take the financial security of your team into consideration. Encourage Rec Sports to stray from "the way things have always been done" and act in the best interests of each Club Sports team and the student-athletes involved.
Please contact me with any questions.
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