Louisiana State University won't be complaining about the return on investment when it comes to head football coach Brian Kelly. Still, they'll be wanting about a million dollars headed back their way.
That's because throughout the course of Kelly's first season as the head football coach in Baton Rouge, he was mistakenly overpaid by $1,001, 368 on top of his roughly $9.5 million average annual salary and any success bonuses he might have triggered.
The accounting blunder was reported in a recently released state legislative audit, though the issue had been corrected months prior. But, how did such a mistake happen?
The overpayments occurred in the form of double salary distributions in the months of May and June, 2022. It arose due to the fact that Kelly's salary was being paid to the coach directly from the start of his employment in November 2021 through April 2022. In April LSU's Board of Directors approved a change to instead pay Kelly's salary to his LLC. Those payments began immediately, but the direct payments continued, "thereby resulting in monthly double payments until LSU management detected it in November."
The good news is Kelly will be employed for the foreseeable future, so he won't be on the hook for a million-dollar check. Instead the university and Kelly have agreed on an adjusted payment schedule that will have the overpaid amount fully recouped by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
Kelly is now now entering the second season of his 10-year, $95 million contract, which includes a bonus structure in place that could push it over $100 million over the course of the deal.
