Those numbers are worth pondering.
For once again, the departments at the University of Iowa and Iowa State University are budgeting big increases in revenue and, once again, they are finding ways to spend every new penny within the departments and not ship anything back to the schools’ general-education coffers.
And, once again, the University of Northern Iowa can’t make ends meet in its athletic budget. It’s going to have to take $3.8 million from student tuition or state appropriations to balance its $12.2 million sports budget.
This makes no sense.
At the very least, the presidents of Iowa and Iowa State should be demanding that their athletic departments turn back $5 million to $10 million to the general-education fund -- which spent millions of dollars subsidizing sports at those universities for generations. Ten million dollars could provide full scholarships for more than 650 in-state students. And if Iowa legislators or Regents were thinking clearly, they’d tell the University of Iowa and Iowa State each to send $2 million to their sister school in Cedar Falls so that UNI wouldn’t have to cut into its desperately needed tuition and appropriations pots. The Regents and the Legislature have the authority to do that.
For it’s the luck of the draw, not bad management or bad teams, that causes UNI to come up short year after year. The University of Iowa and Iowa State get windfalls from television and their conferences. UNI gets pennies.
Some numbers:
Sports revenue at the University of Iowa for this year is budgeted at $84,293,331, up a bit over $4.5 million, or 5.6%, from the money taken in last year. As if by magic, the department has found ways to spend every penny of that extra $4.5 million.
Sports revenue at Iowa State University is budgeted at $60,055,784 this year, up a bit over $3.3 million, or 5.9%, from the fiscal 2013 budget. As if by magic, the department has found ways to spend all but $65,000 of that, which presumably will be kept under the athletic department mattress until it’s needed to send the wives and children of department strawbosses to a bowl game.
Sports revenue at the University of Northern Iowa this year is budgeted at $12,921,197, up about $600,000, or 4.8%, from the year-ago figure. But that revenue this year includes $2.9 million from the university for general athletic operations and another $1.2 million to subsidize athletic scholarships. (At Iowa and Iowa State, the athletic departments fund their scholarships out of department money.) This year’s UNI subsidy is identical to the numbers budgeted for last year.
This is loopy. The University of Northern Iowa in recent years has gone through drastic cost-cutting, has closed departments, trimmed majors and laid off faculty and staff as it struggled to balance its budgets. Its troubles have two roots: First, about 90% of its students come from Iowa, where the number of high-school graduates is declining each year and where competition is particularly stiff from the state’s 30 or more private colleges. Second, the legislature short-changes UNI in its appropriations formula, basing it mainly on total enrollment (which greatly helps the University of Iowa and slightly helps Iowa State) and not on undergraduate, in-state enrollment -- which is what the taxpayers should be subsidizing.
It was not always thus. Ten years ago, the athletics budget at the University of Iowa was about $42 million -- exactly half of what it is today. But the department didn’t take in that much money, so the university shipped $2.4 million to the sports people. It had been subsidizing athletics for years and continued for a few more years until the Big Ten hit the television jackpot. It’s the same at Iowa State. Ten years ago, its sports budget was around $27 million -- less than half of what it is today -- and to meet expenses it took $3.1 million from the university’s general fund. At UNI, the athletic budget 10 years ago was $7.8 million, and that was subsidized with $3.8 million from the general fund.
Isn’t it time that Iowa and Iowa State start paying that money back?
The increase in spending on sports at all three state universities is far outpacing the increase in spending on general education. At Iowa, the general education budget has risen 60% in the past decade; the sports budget is up 100%. At Iowa State, the general education budget is up 44%; the sports budget is up 114%. At UNI, the general education budget is up 25%; the sports budget is up 64%.
This is, as I said, loopy.
There are four ways to fix this.
The first: The athletic directors could budget responsibly, and voluntarily return millions to the general fund, in effect paying back some of those millions from earlier years. This would be easy.
The second: If the athletic directors didn’t do that, the presidents of Iowa and Iowa State could step in and force the issue. This would be somewhat easy.
The third: If the presidents didn’t act, the Board of Regents could mandate either a number of millions to be shifted or a cap on the year-to-year increase in spending. This would be controversial.
The fourth: If the Regents didn’t act, the Legislature could step in and do what the Regents failed to do. This would be traumatic.
Sooner or later, the issue will have to be addressed.
Why not sooner?
And why not take the easy way out?
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