No resolution yet to UNM’s athletics deficit

Any decisions on growing problem postponed until 2018

The University of New Mexico athletic department’s reckoning will have to wait until 2018.

The university has not presented the athletics deficit reduction plan that was expected this month, instead postponing any decisions until after the department’s new chief financial officer arrives, according to a UNM spokeswoman.

Rob Robinson, now at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, starts as athletics CFO in January.

In the meantime, budget forecasts indicate athletics’ debt to the university is on pace to grow by almost 28 percent during the fiscal year that ends June 30.

It would mark the ninth time in 11 years that the department finished in the red — a recurrence that has generated increased scrutiny from the New Mexico Higher Education Department. The university has used its reserves to cover the hole, with athletics running up a $4.7

million deficit through fiscal year 2017, which ended June 30, 2017.

And the tab could get significantly higher: The UNM Board of Regents on Nov. 14 approved using another $1.3 million in reserves to fill the projected gap this year.

In a committee meeting leading up to that decision, regents and administrators discussed their intentions to develop a debt reduction plan by December, plus ideas for mitigating this year’s shortfall so the department would not need a full $1.3 million bailout.

“I think it’s really important that in December we come back with a very detailed plan on the debt reduction for both athletics and the (UNM) Press,” regent President Rob Doughty told David Harris, UNM’s executive vice president for administration, during a regents committee meeting Nov. 3.

But at the regents’ meeting Tuesday — their final session of 2017 — they did not specifically address athletics’ cumulative deficit or any debt repayment plan, even after university Controller Liz Metzger presented the department’s current year budget forecasts.

She told the board that athletics was $1.35 million in the red as of Oct. 31, noting that some key revenue streams related to basketball had not yet been factored in.

“We will be coming back at the next finance and facilities (committee) meeting and full board of regents meeting with a more detailed budget projection for athletics and that will show where we expect to end the year,” Metzger said.

Regent Vice President Marron Lee said in an interview that the board needs more information from staff, which is still gathering data. Waiting until Robinson is on campus means getting a “fresh” perspective on the longstanding financial problems, she said.

But she was reluctant to provide a specific deadline for the process.

“We’re not kicking the can down the road, but this is a complex issue — it’s backwards looking and it’s forward looking, and we’re trying to make sure we make the right decision,” she said. “The decision is going to be hard ... but we have to make sure we have the right data.”

Previously, UNM has said it has a debt repayment plan for athletics, including in a response to Higher Education Secretary Barbara Damron. Damron put UNM on HED’s “enhanced fiscal oversight program” in early October, citing concerns about athletics’ routine budget busting.

But UNM later acknowledged to the Journal that it did not put such a plan in writing.

Damron told the Journal that she will not remove the oversight until at least this spring’s 2019 budget planning process and after her office sees and approves a UNM plan to eliminate the current athletics deficit and demonstrates “sustainable budget planning to ensure that the deficits do not occur in future fiscal years.”

Damron said she has met with UNM administrators and regents in recent months. Asked if she was satisfied with UNM’s efforts to tackle the problem, she said in a written statement that “UNM is taking seriously the athletic budget shortfall, the accumulated debt and the ongoing deficit. We are hopeful that the regents, the current administration, and the incoming administration will address and monitor this situation.”