Regents shore up university cash reporting variances

IOWA CITY - Iowa's three public universities do not report cash and cash equivalents the same way in their budgets, explaining in part why University of Iowa totals appear much larger than Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa amounts.

But the state Board of Regents is taking action to address at least one inconsistency in reporting, and it received answers from the state auditor this week on what other factors might be skewing the numbers.

'The sole purpose is to have a comparable, transparent process,” Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter told The Gazette.

Regents took questions about university cash totals from lawmakers last winter, and Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, said Monday during a Legislative Fiscal Committee meeting in Coralville that some people expressed concern that the UI's cash balance is too big.

But Deputy Auditor of State Andrew Nielsen told the committee and Rastetter on Monday that analyzing the dollars reported by each university is not comparing 'apples to apples.” And, Rastetter said, regents now are better equipped to answer lawmakers' questions after hearing more about why.

According to a 'snapshot” of 'net position” at the three universities on June 30, 2013, UI had $733.3 million in cash or cash equivalents, ISU had $211.6 million, and UNI had $27.2 million. Nielsen said about $338 million of the UI total relates to the UI Hospitals and Clinics, which Dvorsky called a 'totally separate operation.”

The UI total on that date also included nearly $140 million in payroll because it paid employees July 1. The other two universities did payroll June 30 and subsequently had none of that money included in its cash totals.

Some of the money counted toward the universities' cash totals belongs to other entities. All three institutions are holding some money for other agencies, but UI is holding the most - $276.5 million compared with $76.8 million at ISU and $7.8 million for UNI.

Another factor affecting cash reporting at the universities is the 'significant variation in reporting certain assets as a cash equivalent or as an investment” allowed by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

While one university might report all amounts that qualify as a cash equivalent, another might report amounts as an investment when the cash equivalents are part of the Board of Regents' investment strategy.

To eliminate the inconsistency, the Board of Regents has revised its investment policy to incorporate language that narrows the definition of cash equivalents.

When considering the differences in how each university reports cash and cash equivalents, the variances in payroll procedures, and the cash being held for outside agencies, officials said UI and ISU totals are more similar than they might appear.

And Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said that's an important distinction as each university battles for the state's limited pool of higher education funds.

'There's an extreme amount of competition, so when we report this financial information, we are going to want to be clear,” Bolkcom said.