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The 990's


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One more before dinner.

"Judges and Program Staff":

2009: $479,771

2010: $525,017 (plus $45,246 [9.4%] over 2009)

2011: $584,276 (plus $59,259 [11.3%] over 2010, plus $104,505 [21.7%] over 2009)

Some of you may have caught that judges "salaries" don't total to the $1.3-million shown in total salaries and benefits. The $584,276 plus the $202,716 in executive pay equals $793,992. DCI lists 30 additional employed staff. The unaccounted-for difference in salaries is $577,002 which, divided by 30 equals $19,233 average per employee. That amount seems to make sense for a non-profit to pay an "employee", especially if those employees are interns.

Obviously, the pay scale is not linear, and some employees make more than others, I'd bet.

EDIT: Upon re-reading this post now more than a month later, I'm going to add a thought that, apparently, eluded me way back then: It could be that DCI's judges expenses were up because they hired more judges during the season. It's a reason I even alluded to several posts ago when I commented that Travel expenses were down, possibly because DCI hired more local judges. My rant below may surely apply but, because we don't know the cause of the increase, the answer may be less "greedy" than I wrote at the time.

As to judges pay above, it seems to me that judges enjoyed a nice pay raise during the three years shown. I wonder how many other jobs in the country enjoyed a +/- 10% salary increase in the last three years? Surely this is not a linear increase with some judges enjoying a pay increase and others not, I would suspect, but judging a drum corps show and a nice pay raise, after your expenses are covered by DCI, seems like a great gig to me! Heck, I'd judge for free just for the fun, but then everyone would score over 95 if I did!

:tongue:/>

Oh, and another thought, to be fair. This category includes "show staff". It could be that the increase in costs in this category was, at least in part, an increase in show staff, maybe provided by the venue. It's not identifiable that the judge's salaries made up all of the increase above.

Edited by garfield
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if the local shows are paying DCI to host shows, what is DCI paying $4 million for in this section? In exchange for $4 million, DCI gets.... what?

At the risk of sounding snide, I'll remind you what DCI gets for their $4-mil in show expense:

Program Revenue:

2009: $7,824,857

2010: $8,001,731 (plus $176,874 [2.3%] over 2009)

2011: $8,540,384 (plus $538,653 (6.7%] over 2010, plus $715,527 [9.1%] over 2009)

EDIT: Another thought here. There are about 40, or so, shows that are "school" shows (not run by DCI or a corps). At an average of about $20,000 per show (a close guess) that would be about $800,000 in income coming from "school" shows. Subtract this from the revenue above and you get something like $7.7million in revenue for the $4million they spent on shows. Plus or minus.

Edited by garfield
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the first place to check is probably Guidestar, www.guidestar.org

Thank you, the group was non-profit, lost that status for a while (not because they forget to re-apply but details are "murky") and now non-profit again. Some things said at the last meeting that amkes me was to take a look at the stated goals.

Edit: Cool..... Mission Statement has "education" as a goal and suddenly the group is looking to raise more money for scholarships or donate to certain types of schools. Wonder if putting down "education" was thought of a good way to get non-profit back and now they have to do more to prove teh "educational" end (biting in butt?).

Edited by JimF-LowBari
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Continuing with the big expense categories, next comes...

Donor Expenses

2009: $602,170

2010: $565,348 (minus $36,822 [6.1%] from 2009)

2011: $526,640 (minus $38,708 [6.8%] from 2009, minus $75,530 [12.5%] from 2009)

This is pretty interesting because, if you believe that one needs to spend money to make money, it doesn't jibe with the increase in Contributions listed in the Revenue section. I wonder, and this is just a guess, if this relates to the premiums available to Friends of DCI members (free tickets, programs, etc). I wonder if this is related to the continual decline in Friends memberships. Again, I don't know and it's not indicated in any notations.

But if they spent less to get more, then good for them!

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Just a couple more expense catagories until we're done. Now comes:

Fan Network Expenses*

2009: $259,736

2010: $258,595 (basically flat from 2009)

2011: $341,113 (plus $82,518 [32%] from 2010 and about the same increase from 2009)

*Interesting here. In 2011, this is called Fan Network Expenses. Not knowing the costs of maintaining our beloved FN, I thought this reflected the maintenance of the site (and some of that may be included here).

But a clue popped up in the 2009 and 2010 line items, where it's called "Corps Fan Network Payout". So this expense, I suspect, is the rights money paid out to corps for viewings of their content on FN. I'd suspect, rationally, that if this is the case, the corps with the highest viewership got the biggest pieces of this payout. Wouldn't it be fun to see who had the highest viewership?

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At the risk of sounding snide, I'll remind you what DCI gets for their $4-mil in show expense:

Program Revenue:

2009: $7,824,857

2010: $8,001,731 (plus $176,874 [2.3%] over 2009)

2011: $8,540,384 (plus $538,653 (6.7%] over 2010, plus $715,527 [9.1%] over 2009)

EDIT: Another thought here. There are about 40, or so, shows that are "school" shows (not run by DCI or a corps). At an average of about $20,000 per show (a close guess) that would be about $800,000 in income coming from "school" shows. Subtract this from the revenue above and you get something like $7.7million in revenue for the $4million they spent on shows. Plus or minus.

I understand that DCI is making a profit here... this is excellent. I'm just curious what the money from DCI actually goes toward? I assume they have to rent the big stadiums, and I have no idea how much that costs. I assume that is part of it. At the local schools, those shows are paying DCI, so what is DCI paying? Does it go to advertising?

DCI pays $4 million and get $8 million in return. What are they spending the $4 million on? I must be missing something big (and probably obvious), I just don't see where that money is going. Who are they writing those $4 million in checks to?

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EDIT: The following rant is unnecessary and completely explained by common sense that simply eluded me, as explained in the follow-up posts.

Here is one of the "Other" categories that I just don't understand. It seems odd, out of place for some reason, and totally imprudent (recognizing, of course, that I don't know any details). I've been reading DCI's 990's for years and this one just sticks in my craw every time I see it. Even though, in the big picture, it's a small item (less than 3% of the budget), it still irritates me. It is:

Bank and Credit Card Charge

2009: $193,072

2010: $247,890

2011: $248,756

In this day and age of 0% overnight funding, why on Earth can't they find a way to more efficiently manage the liquidity?

Total functional expenses for 2011 were $8,542,134. That means credit and bank charges were 2.91% of expenses even if you assume they put the entire year's expenses on the card. The major revenues to DCI begin with the season, but I understand that expenses can be year round for booking venues and securing suppliers. But would DCI put such expenses on a credit card?

Again, I don't know the details, but I'd bet that the actual dollar amount charged to credit cards was a whole lot less than $8million, which means that, as a percentage, these costs are more - maybe much more - than 2.91%.

And this could be interest charge; "Credit Card Interest" doesn't show up anywhere else except, possibly, in the liabilities category of "Accounts Payable" (unpaid interest?). And that number, as we'll see in a bit, doesn't come close to nearly $250,000.

Maybe I'm picking at an unfixable problem, but I do know something about the industry, at least. And the amount of CC expenses they paid was darn near what they paid for external marketing consultants! It's not chump-change.

I would suggest DCI put their surpluses into an account that gives a cheaper way to disburse it, and I know cash management is a very competitive banking function.

Edited by garfield
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One last expense, and then I'll wrap up with the few nickels spent here or there.

Advertising and Promotion

2009: $153,467

2010: $165,763

2011: $294.064

Wowza! So here's the proof that you have to spend money to make money.

I love seeing this. We need more of this, IMO.

"Broadcast and Production" expenses may include maintenance of the FN, or not, but it's been pretty consistent, growing from $202,000 in '09 to $214,000 in 2011. This may be Tom Blair's payout, and I don't think many would doubt that he puts plenty of work into "cleaning up" the production for the DVDs and BluRays.

"Printing and Publications" costs have declined, as you might expect. In 2009 it was $250,661 and in 2011 it was $178,340.

"Telephone and Internet cost". In 2009 they were $229,188. In 2011 they were $160,983.

They're still paying the post office $19,386 (up from about $17,000 in '09). I suppose this could be FedEx document deliveries as well.

"Bad Debt Expense" shows up for the first time in 2011, at $20,000 that someone stiffed them on. Ream, did you pay your Fan Network bill? :tongue:

Edited by garfield
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That finishes the expenses and the Income Statement. Thanks to all of those who's eyes haven't glazed over for following along.

Tomorrow, Correction: I think I'll wait a couple days for people to catch up and comment. Then, after my eyes un-cross, I'll do a quick summary of Assets and Liabilities that probably won't last more than a half-dozen posts or so. There are some interesting things in there, too.

Then, I'll start the peek at the corps financials for the same years. That should be fun.

My plan is to simply go down the list from Cadets through the 2011 finishing order to see if there's a corellation between finances and placement finish.

I suspect looking at the corps will take fewer posts now that you've gotten the gist after following along so far. I can be more succinct in my descriptions.

And I think I'll let you guys drive the discussion as I post.

Thanks for putting up with long posts and lots of numbers. I hope you all have enjoyed so far (that is, those of you who had the interest to enter such a thread in the first place!)

Edited by garfield
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