The University has released its 2007 fiscal year financial results, which saw a nearly 77 percent increase in excess revenues from last year. Total surplus revenues for 2007 totaled nearly $250 million, compared to $141 million in 2006.

According to Randy Livingston, vice president for business affairs and chief financial officer, the spike in University gains can be attributed to unexpected increases in several areas of the school’s income.

“The excess of revenues over expenses was higher than in [fiscal year] 2006 largely because current year gifts and investment income exceeded our budget plan,” Livingston wrote in an email to The Daily. “Health care revenue flowing to the School of Medicine from the hospitals was also substantially above budget plan. Operating expenses were close [to] the budget plan levels.”

With these areas of the budget exceeding expectations, the University may now boast a net profit increase of more than three-fourths. But even so, Livingston noted that this increase in no way constitutes a blank check by which funds could be allocated to wherever the administration wants.

“Most of the excess of revenues over expenses sits in restricted funds held by departments and programs across the University,” said Livingston. “The University has over 30,000 different funds that each has unique restrictions imposed by donors or based on the source of revenues. Very little of the excess is held centrally with flexibility to use it for any purpose.”

Livingston added that two principal factors — timing differences on gifts and the cost of facilities and capital equipment — can tend to inflate revenue statements. As many gifts are expended over a number of years, they can bring greater revenue early on and then more expenses later. And in terms of facilities and equipment, costs for these are not, in accounting terms, listed as “expenses” in statements.

“When we use operating revenue to fund new facilities and capital equipment, we’ll appear to have an excess of revenues over current expenses,” he said.

Yet for the University, this announcement of a substantial increase in excess funds may be ill-timed — it coincides directly with both the yearly admissions process and announcements by other top universities, most notably Harvard and Yale, that they will be dramatically increasing their commitments to financial aid for students.

For the school’s 2007 fiscal year financial report, Harvard reported excess revenues of just over $30 million. With Stanford not following suit on the financial aid increase, exactly where the surplus funds will be put to use and how that will reflect on the University remains to be seen.

Livingston said he does not consider finances of this sort to be a means of competition between schools.

“The excess of revenues over expenses is not something that we view as an important measure of university performance, and as a result, we do not track how we compare to other universities on this measure,” he said.

Olivia Puerta ‘08 expressed desire to see some of the excess revenues committed to better financial aid opportunities for students.

“I think that’s definitely something that should be given consideration, and I am definitely in support of greater financial aid,” she said.