Budget cuts to have staggering impact on Grambling athletics

Just how deeply Grambling athletics will be impacted by proposed budget cuts for University of Louisiana System schools has come into focus.

ULS officials are in Baton Rouge this week detailing a plan for the House Appropriations Committee that would include, among other things, slashing $1,413,071 from GSU’s sports funding.

This is a staggering sum for a department that had just $2,952,040 in operating sports revenue for the 2006-07 fiscal year, the most recent figures available. (That Grambling budget report, submitted to the state by the accounting firm of Bruno and Tervalon, can be found here.)

Football was the only sport at GSU to make a profit over the same 2006-07 fiscal year, bringing in $389,898 after expenses like travel, equipment and scholarships. It’s difficult to imagine gashes that deep failing to reach even this golden-goose program.

In all, Grambling has been asked to cut 16 percent of its total budget (or nearly $5 million) as part of a state plan to trim higher education funding by $219 million.

“If there is any way at all that this body could consider softening the cuts to education, I assure you the long-term consequences will be minimized,” Commissioner of Higher Education Sally Clausen told legislators. “This will set a very poor state back by generations. Setting us back is short-sighted. It’s short-sighted for the state, short-sighted for the future and short-sighted for the students we allege to serve.”

Grambling, a university that’s always struggled with underfunding, is actually being asked for the second deepest cut across the whole system, with Southeastern Louisiana trimming a sliver more at 16.1 percent total.

Here’s how Grambling’s total budget cut compares with the other ULS schools — McNeese State: 15.5 percent; Nicholls State: 15.4 percent; Northwestern State: 15.3 percent; Louisiana-Monroe: 15 percent; Louisiana-Lafayette: 14.2 percent; Louisiana Tech: 13.7 percent.

Breaking it down to just athletics: Louisiana-Monroe is proposing cuts totalling $350,000. Louisiana Tech only aims to trim sports funding by $258,262. In other words, less than five percent of the total proposed cuts for the two ULS-affiliated universities closest to Grambling are coming from athletics, while GSU’s reductions in sports funding acccount more than 25 percent of the school’s total proposed reductions through all departments.

The complete list of Grambling cuts proposed to meet the state’s budget demands:

Grambling State University
University of Louisiana System
2009-10 Budget Reduction
2009-10
Budget Reduction
Expenditures by Function:
Instruction $1,022,491
Research $1,227
Public Service $0
Academic Support $1,072,654
Student Services $888,653
Institutional Services $289,371
Scholarships/Fellowships $0
Plant Operations/Maintenance $192,983
Total E&G Expenditures $3,467,379
Hospital $0
Transfers out of agency $0
Athletics $1,413,071
Other $0
Total Expenditures $4,880,450
Expenditures by Object:
Salaries $2,420,965
Other Compensation $15,000
Related Benefits $239,754
Total Personal Services $2,675,719
Travel $162,500
Operating Services $20,500
Supplies $20,660
Total Operating Expenses $203,660
Professional Services $4,000
Other Charges $0
Debt Services $0
Interagency Transfers $1,413,071
Total Other Charges $1,413,071
General Acquisitions $184,000
Library Acquisitions $400,000
Major Repairs $0
Total Acquisitions and Major Repairs $584,000
Total Expenditures $4,880,450
Positions:
Filled Faculty (Tenure, Tenure-Track) 1
Vacant Faculty (Tenure, Tenure-Track) 0
Filled Faculty (Non-Tenure) 8
Vacant Faculty (Non-Tenure) 7
Total Faculty 16
Unclassified Professional Staff 5
Vacant Unclassified Professional Staff 10
Classified Staff 16
Vacant Classified Staff 6
Total Staff 37
Total Positions 53

The Louisiana Legislature is evaluating these proposed higher ed cuts as part of ongoing statewide budget talks. Expect some form of these changes to be implemented quickly: The new state budget year begins July 1.

THE SCHOOL’S RESPONSE:
Grambling AD on slashed budget: ‘We won’t delete any sports’
OUR TAKE:
On Grambling’s dramatic budget cuts for athletics … chicken or egg?