Revenue down, participation up in summer camps

This archived article was written by: Nate Manley

A net loss of $36,785 at the end of the 2013 fiscal year was reported in the USU Eastern summer camp financial summaries. Despite revenue and participants at their highest levels in seven years, the figures ended in the negative.
Daniel Allen, executive in residence and director of summer Programs, was able to comment via email stating that, “We had the unfortunate problem of discovering two large clerical errors late in the fiscal year. These errors occurred in prior years, but had to be adjusted in fiscal year 2013.”
One of these errors was a clerical related to salary charges made to the wrong department.
The other regarded a problem of remitting refunds for overpayment of one of the football camps. Allen further explained, “The net income for the previous three years was overstated…which lead to taking the hit all in FY13.”
The Eagle staff reviewed the full report of all the schools involved and total number of participants. Total revenue for the field camps was at its highest level ever, generating $16,705. Academic camps had a total of 479 participants generating $62,640 in total revenue, a 50 percent increase over a five-year span. Sports camps reached an all-time low with both number of participants and revenue, totaling 564 participants generating only $73,780 in revenue, a 50 percent decrease over the same five-year span.
Negative publicity in state-wide newspapers might have played a role in the drop of participant numbers of the sports camps, according to Allen. Reports from both the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune of multiple incidents of football coaches at two separate high schools investigated for misallocating funds. Because of both team’s involvement with football camps, the USU Eastern summer football program was mentioned in the investigation, along with all other schools involved.
Allen claims that, “although we did nothing wrong, our name was associated with the problems at these schools in media coverage. I believe this had an impact on the number of football teams coming last summer.”