Opinion ID: 684083
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reporting Mechanism

Text: 21 In Carroll I, we instructed the district court to fashion procedures that would ensure that NYPIRG spends as much at SUNY Albany as it receives from Albany students' fee. 957 F.2d at 1003. Although the precise reporting mechanism was left to the discretion of the district court, we indicated that the reporting procedures should be as unintrusive as possible. Id. at 1002-03. 22 Appellants contend that the reporting mechanism approved by the district court is deficient in two respects. First, they take issue with the NYPIRG accounting system, which is kept on a per-project basis, and suggest that NYPIRG be ordered to switch to a campus-oriented accounting system. This, appellants contend, would avoid the problems inherent in allocating the costs of NYPIRG's projects among a large number of university campuses. Although requiring NYPIRG to design a new accounting system would perhaps simplify the compliance process, at least from appellants' perspective, we specifically considered and rejected requiring any direct tracking of expenses and segregation of NYPIRG's accounts in Carroll I, id. at 1002. For this reason, the district court correctly refused appellants' invitation to immerse [itself] to this degree in NYPIRG's inner workings. See id. 23 Appellants also take issue with the allocation of various costs described in the documents referred to in the judgment, and suggest a variety of different procedures for NYPIRG to confirm its compliance with this Court's mandate. The district court's judgment requires NYPIRG to submit annual reports describing its projects and activities at SUNY Albany and the expenditures made in connection with each project. The referenced documents show how SUNY Albany's share of the expenditures was determined. The district court found that the form and substance of these reports were adequate to comply with our mandate in Carroll I, and appellants have failed to show that the district court abused the broad discretion with which it was vested. Indeed, the reports approved by the district court are similar to, but more extensive than, the reports referred to in Carroll I. See id. at 1003 n. 9. Although we are cognizant that many of the allocations made in the documents referred to in the judgment were estimates made long after the fact, we expect that as NYPIRG becomes more accustomed to the compliance procedures required by the judgment, its accounting will become more precise.