The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn bracing for ‘deep cuts’ to sports, academics
The University of Connecticut is preparing for severe cuts to the athletic, administrative and academic budgets due to the impact of the coronavirus, officials said at a Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.
A fiscal working group assembled to identify potential savings has “recommended pretty deep cuts to the whole university,” Chief Financial Officer Scott Jordan said. The board is expecting to consider spending plans for the 2020-21 school year next month, with significant uncertainty about whether students will be able to return to campus or remain online.
“There has been continual pressure from the University Senate and by some members of the faculty on the administration to look at athletics and the fiscal working group echoed those sentiments,” Jordan said. “The athletics department is working hard on some strategies that could reduce the subsidy as much as 25 percent.”
UConn’s athletic department had a $42.3 million deficit subsidized by the university in 2019, and similar shortfalls in 2017 and 2018, according to financial statements filed to the NCAA. A 25 percent reduction that Jordan alluded to would mean cutting more than $10 million in expenses.
The department spent more than $80 million in 2019, and brought in about $38.6 million in revenue from ticket sales, fundraising, media rights and other sources.
The 2019 deficit was covered with $33.5 million in institutional support from the school’s budget, and $8.8 million in student fees. UConn President Tom Katsouleas has said repeatedly over the last year that cutting the size of that subsidy is a goal, and the school anticipates that returning to the Big East Conference will help by increasing ticket sales, fundraising proceeds, and media revenue while cutting travel expenses.
UConn, a member of the American Athletic Conference since 2013, will officially join the Big East on July 1.
The football team’s deficit last year was $13.3 million, with $16.6 million in expenses and only $3.3 million in revenue. The team was 2-10 in 2019 and has been a frequent target of critics for its performance and costs.The Big East does not sponsor football, so UConn will play an independent schedule beginning this fall.
The cuts in various budgets at UConn for the upcoming year will likely affect “academic, administrative, athletics, literally everything that we do,” Jordan said. “This is a year when we’re going to have to take a hard look at everything we do, and there may be some deep cuts needed.”
They’re preparing for potential revenue losses of $65 million to $129 million, depending on whether and how many students return in the fall.
“This is going to be difficult,” board chairman Dan Toscano said, “and there will be pain, and there will probably be some level of disagreement along the way from our constituencies about what we’re doing.”