(07-18-2015 10:48 AM)Marge Schott Wrote: I don't know about Alabama but the state doesn't fund public universities' athletic departments in Florida.
Technically they don't in Alabama either Marge, as both are separate entities within the respective universities, but the budgeting process is still the same as that of the school in regards to process. And there are some shared budgetary items. Hold too much and it hurts the perception of need. They hold their money essentially independent of the school, but have to account for it in the same way. The fear is that if you establish too much of a nest egg things could change, both with regards to the present structure via state political moves, or from pressure within the university. (Hell, in Alabama right now the Teacher Retirement Program is so well funded that the idiot state politicians want it opened up to borrow against. Save and somebody, especially politicians, gets envious and wants to take it.)
At Auburn faculty have some oversight over the Athletic Department. Projects drive donations, so they spend. Need can stimulate donations so they spend just about everything they get. And fear of losing the ability to spend or to stay an independent and wealthy part of a school in a state where budgetary cuts to the school itself remain a palpable issue means they spend just about every damn dime they get.
The structure breeds waste, irresponsibility, and selfishness with regards to the parent institution. That all needs to stop.
Years ago in sales we had draw accounts. This money was held by the company and paid to you upon demand. It was not taxed until paid. The risk was that the company could go out and you would lose your money. The benefit was you regulated your tax bracket.
If we were to establish athletic draw accounts then those funds could be retained for unexpected expenditures, or to fund down years. It would give AD's many more rational options to the "if you got it, you have to spend it" mentality that permeates the process today. Just permit them to accrue the revenue without having to declare it until spent and the whole process changes. Permit them to establish a way to pay the educational end of the school the interest on that money, while retaining the principal for their own purposes, and all the better. Five year budgets and 10 year budgets could be projected with built in inflationary adjustments, and the budget itself could proceed in an orderly fashion.
Individual projects (like big danged TV screens for your stadium) could still be up for funding by some corporation which wants to paint it with their logo. Projects can always be open to sponsorship. Budgets however need to be constrained to reality and that means saving against the prospect of future calamity.
If we had such practicalities in place realignment would likely have progressed in a much different way.
Now to the other side of this hypocrisy. Part of the reasons the schools wanted to separate their university budgets from the athletic budgets was because they too wanted to perpetuate the need for increases. If athletic revenue is included in the University's budget then justifying expenditures to the state would be a lot tougher from a numbers perspective. So by segregating the most profitable area of the school from the educational budget the process of spend everything you can still is applicable. And contained therein are your COLAS which drive the salaries of those working in all bureaucracies, which in turn causes creep in the expense of education (which has reached ridiculous amounts), and of course diminishing enrollment for many smaller state schools as the larger ones drop enrollment standards to keep pace economically and drive the local economies of their respective communities.
This is why there is a downsizing in higher education coming but it will hit lower tier state sponsored schools first. The branding of the P5 is important not just for sports revenue, but also because name recognition produced by sports spurs enrollment. It's about surviving the a downturn in demand due to low paying jobs and the downturn in birthrate among the middle class. Boomers are dying out, their kids earn less and have less earning potential (especially when adjusted for inflation) than their parents or grandparents had. This is seminal because it is the first time this has occurred in our history as a nation. We have had depressions before, but nothing that has trended as this has.
