US Chess Discussion

Welcome! This blog has no connection with the USCF. It's a blog where I provide chess fans with general information about US Chess as well as the USCF. It's also a site where everyone can productively discuss or ask questions about various USCF issues! Your contributions and comments are welcome! PLEASE KEEP IT CIVIL & RESPECT OTHERS! Enjoy! All posts that do not meet this guideline will be deleted -- WIN WITH GRACE, LOSE WITH DIGNITY!(TM) --- 2006 Susan Polgar©

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Did the USCF lose, break even or make money?


We are now in the 3rd week of June. The question that has been looming is did the USCF lose, break even or make money in the past 12 months. Some say that the USCF lost money. Some say that the USCF broke even. Some said that the USCF made money. Which is the correct answer?
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posted by Chess Daily News @ 6/19/2007 06:23:00 PM  

15 Comments:

  • At Tuesday, June 19, 2007 6:25:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The answer is the USCF lost money but Bill Goichberg is holding off the numbers so his guys Joe Lux, Stephen Jones, Don Schultz and his snitch Sam Sloan can get elected. But Goichberg will blame you and tell the USCF members that it's your fault. What a guy Goichberg is!

     

  • At Wednesday, June 20, 2007 5:54:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I hope that if the team gets elected you see to it that better practicing methods of finanial record keeping gets put in place.

     

  • At Wednesday, June 20, 2007 8:32:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Yes, the USCF did lose money again. But no one knows how much. It seems that they're not releasing the numbers until after the election to protect Schultz and Sloan.

     

  • At Wednesday, June 20, 2007 9:42:00 PM, Blogger tanstaafl said…

    The USCF made money.

    Don't believe anybody that tells you otherwise. The adjustments that haven't been properly made yet (accounting properly for deferred income from previous years) can be made to SOUND funny, but keep in mind that our cash income from THIS year was already decreased to defer part of it to future years.

    We made even more money if you don't count depreciation of our building in Crossville. For those that aren't aware, depreciation is an adjustment made to account for the falling value of capital assets that will eventually wear out. While it's proper accounting (GAAP) to depreciate a building, in the real world a well maintained building will actually increase in value every year. Otherwise you wouldn't see too many people investing in real estate.

     

  • At Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:40:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Can I quote Sam Sloan on the USCF Forums. He gets accounting figures because he is on the EB. Here is what he posted.


    samsloan 11115292
    Joined: 08 Mar 2004
    Posts: 1773
    Location: Bronx, New York
    Post:55274 Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:49 pm Post subject: Great News as the USCF only lost $57,915 this year

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

    Great News as the USCF only lost $57,915 this year.

    There have been celebrations, dancing in the streets and kazoos blowing, as it was officially announced yesterday that the USCF only lost $57,915 this fiscal year, which ended on May 31, 2007.

    However, the best is yet to come, as Executive Director Bill Hall proudly pointed out the USCF lost $130,846 last year, which means that there has been an improvement to the extent of $72,932 since last year.

    If this encouraging trend continues, the USCF might only lose $20,000 to $30,000 next year, which would be a wonderful development.

    Even Donna Alarie has congratulatory words, by pointing out that, in order to come to the figure of minus $57,915, the Executive Director found $150,000 which even the finance committee had missed. Otherwise, we would have lost $207,915.

    We all owe a great debt of thanks to Bill Hall for finding this money.

    Of course, those pesky auditors usually find that our financial condition is $100,000 to $200,000 worse than our office told us it was. We should get rid of those auditors. Our trusty office staff can do their jobs without being bothered.

    Sam Sloan

     

  • At Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:45:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    tanstaafl

    says not to worry about these loses. 20 years from now we can sell the unsaleable building and make a profit which will help reduce the next 20 years of loses.

    Unfortunately the building does not have a normal title. It can not simply be sold. So what is the value of the building. Well some feel we should not talk about it. I think we paid $650,000 for a building that we can not sell so therefore has no real value.

    Have no fear the huge losses will be announced AFTER THE ELECTION.

     

  • At Thursday, June 21, 2007 4:47:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    As a CPA and CMA I take exception to the comment about depreciation. The building does depreciate and requires maintenance. To state that depreciation should not be recorded to demonstrate income is wrong. Depreciation is an add back to derive CASH FLOW and NOT an ADJUSTED INCOME. If the USCF lost money on the INCOME STATEMENT then say they lost money. Also, you make it sound like deferred income is some special adjustment that you are bestowing to benefit some future year. This is generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)and is required- you are not doing anything special here. Just indicate whether there is income or loss and if cash flow was positive and negative and please do not make it sound like the USCF is some ultraconservative income generating machine. Just the facts please.

     

  • At Friday, June 22, 2007 12:59:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    To the CPA and CMA

    Wow. I dont understand but I am sure you are correct. These guys pull the wool over my eyes. Good to have someone who understands all this mess and can tell us the simple truth.

    Bottom line I suspect the USCF has another loss.

     

  • At Friday, June 22, 2007 11:03:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I posted the previous accounting posting. I noticed the comment that the auditors find significant adjustments. Auditors should not be able to find significant adjustments as the internal USCF accounting team should do their jobs right the first time. It seems as if they try to drive the profits up (or should I say the losses down) and then hope that the auditors do not catch the adjustments.

    I do significant amounts of consulting work for troubled companies and I can tell you that this outdated and dangerous practice must be eliminated immediately.

    Also, while I love accounting I must point out that a non-profit should spend more time discussing achievements as opposed to the strides in reducing losses. The fact is:
    1. There is no USCF internet site to play chess (US Chess Live is lost and was never anything). Let's get going on this.
    2. There are no education programs (especially web-based) except those outside the USCF (such as Susan's).
    3. While they say the USCF is about tournaments, do they ever really run any? I see them at the wonderful National Open (and I mean that... it is a great tournament), but it seems that all of the other tournaments are CCA. Is this a for profit corp???? Does anyone know? Why doesn't the USCF have a separate non-profit for tournaments? This way the prize funds can be guaranteed to be some percentage that is quite high and I bet that Susan could get some supplemental prize funds (small at first but they would grow).

    I post this as anonymous but I am not opposed to revealing who I am and I can back everything I say with help. Back Susan- it is time for change.

    I am anxious to hear from those that are close to the USCF.

     

  • At Friday, June 22, 2007 4:45:00 PM, Blogger tanstaafl said…

    anonymous said "tanstaafl says not to worry about these loses. 20 years from now we can sell the unsaleable building and make a profit which will help reduce the next 20 years of loses." No, that's NOT what I said. I dispute the fact that we're losing money this year. The numbers that Sam Sloan posted are PRELIMINARY and we're already pretty sure a couple of important adjustments were left off. Anybody that wants to believe Sam Sloan about the amount of the loss and whether the building can be sold is welcome to do so. I think you'd have better luck believing in the tooth fairy, but that's just my opinion.

    And to the CPA and CMA that posted anonymously, you've mixed some terms when you talk about depreciation and maintenance. The maintenance expenses are completely independent from depreciation and already show up, as does the depreciation. But as an experienced real estate investor, I can tell you that a well maintained building doesn't REALLY depreciate. It goes up in value. Every one that I've bought has gone up significantly. Only if you neglect maintenance does a building go down in value. This is likely to be the case as long as inflation continues to be a factor (which, as far as I can tell, will be forever).

    Also, to make it clear, when I talk about deferring income to future years: Yes, I understand perfectly well that is NORMAL. We do it. It's ALSO normal to recognize income that was deferred to THIS year from PREVIOUS years. It only makes sense to do the FIRST, if you also do the SECOND. *Some* people have objected to recognizing the income deferred from previous years -- that's the adjustment to our year end statements that will put us in the black (I expect). This is what I was warning about, the way people could distort the recognition of income deferred from previous years. I've seen people call this "imaginary" money. It's no more imaginary the the adjustment we made to defer income FROM this year TO future years. I would even expect them to be of about the same magnitude. We might be deferring a little more income from this year (because of the dues sale) than we recognize from previous years, but I don't expect a big difference.

    As to the anonymous statement "I posted the previous accounting posting. I noticed the comment that the auditors find significant adjustments. Auditors should not be able to find significant adjustments as the internal USCF accounting team should do their jobs right the first time. It seems as if they try to drive the profits up (or should I say the losses down) and then hope that the auditors do not catch the adjustments. I do significant amounts of consulting work for troubled companies and I can tell you that this outdated and dangerous practice must be eliminated immediately." This sounds like a pure and simple libel to me. I don't think there's any chance at all that our current office staff are trying to make things look better than they really are. In fact, the adjustments they've neglected this year have made us look much WORSE than we really are. You don't have to take my word on it. I've seen basically the same thing posted by Donna Alaire and Mike Nolan. (and Donna had even made a bet that we'd finish the year in the red -- a bet that she's now saying she's going to lose).

     

  • At Saturday, June 23, 2007 11:57:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    From the CPA and CMA: Wow... I sometimes thought that Susan Polgar was over-reacting when she said that some were nasty. "Pure and simple libel"- you explain to me how an organization needs all of these adjustments. My point is that a good accounting team does not need auditors to make adjustments- they make the entries themselves. I was referring to a previous post indicating that large adjustments were made by the auditors.

    Most companies today can close the books quickly and get the financial statements out. I do not know if they are late or not. I only know that there are numerous posts that indicate that they have a hard time getting them right without the auditors. These are not my posts. In fact, I recall the USCF making prior year adjustments- isn't this the case for some of the prior years? Were these the result of major accounting changes are were they to fix something? I really don't know and I would like to know.

    The entire USCF organization needs to grow up and just answer simple questions. The market value of real estate has NO relevance here- you know as well as I do that the USCF was not created to make real estate investments and depreciation and market appreciation are not appropriate adjustments to derive NET INCOME. So what if the value goes up- this gets realized at the end.

    There would not be as much controversy if they would just post the correct numbers and do them right the first time. And don't mix CASH FLOW and NET INCOME- these are two different concepts.

    And please lets not be so ultra sensitive about comments that are in response to your own distorted facts on net income and cash flow.

    I for one just want some facts. And, need I point out that I am a member of the USCF and they are here to serve the membership and not the other way around.

    I for one am ready for a change- vote for the Polgar slate.

     

  • At Monday, June 25, 2007 1:19:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    ckaipDuring FY 2007 the USCF increased its operating cash by $70,000. The final accrual accounting-based profit or loss for the year won't be known until our outside accountants have finished their work (within a couple of weeks), but I believe we'll show a modest profit.

    Joel Channing
    Vice President, Finance

     

  • At Tuesday, June 26, 2007 8:04:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    From the CPA and CMA: That should end this issue until the financial statements are released. This is the most refreshing post I have seen recently. I am sure that we all hope that the projections hold. Thanks!

     

  • At Monday, July 02, 2007 10:56:00 PM, Blogger tanstaafl said…

    To the CPA and CMA:
    Yes, I called it simple libel because you made it sound like the office staff INTENTIONALLY left out adjustments that would have make us look worse. The fact is, that the remaining adjustments that need to be made (and that are required under GAAP) will make us look BETTER than the preliminary numbers would indicate. (Even if this weren't true, I don't think anybody is leaving things out ON PURPOSE).

    The only reason to bring up depreciation is that it makes us LOOK worse than we really are. Here's a simple example:
    Case 1: you buy (or build) an office and your mortgage payment and maintenance comes to $1000 a month. After adding interest and depreciation and maintenance, your books will show greater than $1000 per month in expenses.
    Case 2: you pay $1000 per month in rent -- that's all you pay and that's all the books show.

    Now, you're REALLY better off in case 1. After all, you'll own the building after the mortgage is paid off. But for the first few years you'll LOOK worse in case 1 (at least until your landlord raises the rent). The difference is significant. You don't have to be a real estate investor to see it -- any homeowner can tell you the same thing.

    I agree we need to do better about getting the numbers out, getting them correct, etc. I'm only willing to hear about how our new CFO is going to set thing straight for so long before I lose patience -- he's had a few months now. But it doesn't help to exaggerate the problem.

    On a cash basis we did OK. On a accrual basis we did OK. There are bigger, more important problems and we shouldn't panic over THIS problem.

     

  • At Sunday, July 15, 2007 2:32:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    And now for the final results ..... ?

    The couple of weeks since June 25 have been passed.

     

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