Totally agree accounting wise and federal rules. However, at one point in my career ( a long time ago), I worked for an agency that was considered a state agency subdivision in Iowa. We generated all of our operating income through earnings and had little state monetary support, we even paid the state for some administrative resources. If we had a good year, we would have to spend excess, non-committed revenue; otherwise it would go to the state coffers. So we would bust our butts to maintain fiscal discipline, but when the fiscal year ended; would have to turn over any non-committed revenue to the state. So we devised a system whereby we would always have bidders ready and waiting around April 1st, to submit bids on "dream" projects, usually reasonably small equipment purchases or maintenance services to use any excess revenue; get it approved in May, and completed and paid by July 1. There were some exceptions for long term construction, but it was complicated, and usually would have to be planned prior to knowing whether the economy would be good or bad for the year. Because we didn't have reserves, we were forced to budget conservatively on our incomes.
Don't know if the state still does this, but if they do, it could apply to ISU athletics. Maybe that's why our donations go to the foundation, I'm sure they would have an exemption because of endowments.