The academic side of the university isn’t the only place being hit by the ongoing budget cuts.
The athletic department has faced its own budget cuts and is tackling the obstacle of finding places where money can be saved. Associate Athletic Director Theresa Yetmar said the department has had to be creative in searching for ways to make the necessary cuts. From uniforms to travel and scheduling, the department is finding ways to cut back on spending within every program.
“I think coming into this year we were very sensitive to the budget issues for the whole university,” Yetmar said. “So we looked at what does a program need to succeed at its basic level.”
Much like the academic side of the university, the athletic department is under a budget review and is required to submit a formal report to University President Pat Long and the Board of Trustees detailing where more cuts can be made. Yetmar expects the department will be ready to submit the review following winter break.
“What we are doing is we are trying to look at all of our programs and find inefficiencies that maybe we have missed before or any kind of overhauls that we would want to do with how we structure things,” Yetmar said.
Chief Operating Officer Susan Lindahl said the budget review that will be turned in by the athletic department will aid administration in reshaping the sports budget for the 2010-2011 school year.
“As with the academic program review, the athletic review for the program is for next year’s fiscal budget,” she said.
Head football coach Mike Grossner said from an operational standpoint, every athletic program in the university has been cut, and finding more ways to decrease spending will be a difficult task.
“Across the board I think we are pretty much at the bare minimum, so it is difficult to determine where you go and what you do in each program,” Grossner said.
With every program affected by the cuts, Grossner said only time will heal the hard hits the sports budget has faced.
“We are at a point as an institution that everybody is watching the bottom line and making sure that we can get back to level,” Grossner said. “I think it’s going to take a couple years for every department to get back to where we feel like we can expand again.”
With saving money on the mind, concerns surrounded the addition of two new sports programs this year and the effect on the already tight budget. However, successful recruitment by both programs has aided the university as a whole.
“Those two new programs brought approximately 50 new students, which is revenue for our school,” Grossner said. “So I think that has been a positive for those programs to start up.”
Despite struggles with the budget cuts, the administration still considers students’ needs to be the priority. Keeping students in mind, Long, along with the help of an anonymous donation, signed a contract with Advanced Exercise Equipment to bring new equipment to the university fitness center.
Yetmar said the fitness center will receive four new treadmills, three new ellipticals and two new bikes, all of which are scheduled to be installed over winter break.
“(Long) decided that this is a priority because we want to continue to help serve all of the students on campus,” Yetmar said.
