[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by Pat Fairbank

I'm not an accountant, but a quick look at FIRST's financials seem to indicate that the organization is operating at a $2M yearly surplus and is sitting on top of nearly $24M in cash and short-term investments.

Given that for the parent organization funding is apparently not in short supply, is it unreasonable of me to ask why regionals experiencing financial hardship can't retain a larger portion of their own registration fees?

I'm not an accountant either, but to get better insight into FIRST financials, their Form 990 filing provides details for revenues, expenses and compensation for the fiscal year. As a non-profit organization, FIRST's 2011 Form 990 filing is public information and can be found on the web.

An interesting aspect of the filing is the expenses falling under the category of "grants or other assistance to organizations, governments and individuals." Expenditure of grants received by FIRST from donors for specific teams in excess of $5000 are listed in Schedule I (starting on page 35). Basically, team registration fees are considered fair market value for "Kit of parts and program participation."

One might expect a portion of the team's registration fee for events would be applied directly the cost of events the team attends, but this is not the case. This begs the question: for teams registering for than one regional, just what program participation expenses are being paid by the additional $4000 per regional?

Some transparency from FIRST here would also be appreciated.