As YSU Cuts Its Budget, Athletics Gets More
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- As Youngstown State University tightens its belt with an operating budget of 1.3% less than last year’s, the budget for its intercollegiate athletics program grew 2.16% for this fiscal year.
That statistic is “deceptive,” says the director of YSU athletics, Ron Strollo. For example, the retirement of two highly paid veteran staff in his office, an administrative assistant paid $55,541 and an accounting clerk paid $47,690, remain vacant as part of what YSU President Cynthia Anderson calls “the new normal.”
When asked about the increase in spending for intercollegiate athletics while the university budget has shrunk, Anderson bristled. The question was posed when she met with reporters after her state of the university address Aug. 20. The president insisted that the cutbacks affected intercollegiate athletics along with the rest of the university.
“We’ve gone from eight administrative assistants to one secretary for the entire department,” the athletics director points out. “Our staffing level [number of coaches] is probably half our peers in the Missouri Valley (Football Conference] and Horizon League.”
Controlling costs, he says, translates into “Our budgets are so lean,” that some varsity “teams have to do a lot of fundraising.” The head coach of one minor-sports team spent his own money, not his recruitment budget, to visit Europe in search of athletes to study at YSU and become Penguins.
Strollo did not identify the coach.
If someone tries to call the head football coach on the landline to his office, he can’t. “Eric Wolford no longer has a direct phone,” Strollo says.
The YSU budget for fiscal 2012 was $180.99 million. This fiscal year, it’s $178.65 million of which athletics makes up $11.96 million.
The intercollegiate athletics program was budgeted $11.71 million in fiscal 2012. In fiscal 2013, that rose to $11.96 million. (All figures are rounded to two places beyond the decimal point.)
Unlike universities that are football and basketball powerhouses and those sports pay for themselves and sustain the so-called minor sports, the general fund at YSU pays roughly three dollars in every four that the athletics department spends on administration, student scholarships, coaches’ salaries, maintenance of the playing fields and buildings, sports information program, ticket office and cheerleaders, among other items.
The new Watson and Tressel Training Center is not a part of the athletics department, something Strollo hopes to change. Every time he wants to schedule something in the Watt Center, he notes, he has to call the facilities department.
The general fund of the university transferred nearly $8.8 million in 2012 to the athletics department, 5.5% more than in 2011, and in 2013 the general fund will transfer $9.06 million, an increase of 5.8% above 2012.
Much of that increase reflects the higher sums allocated to scholarships – the NCAA requires schools in YSU’s division to allocate so many scholarships per sport – because Youngstown State continues to raise tuition. Athletics scholarships this year are $16,900 per student who resides in Ohio and $23,000 for those outside the state.
Also contributing to the athletics budget last year were $350,000 in sales of football tickets and $110,000 in basketball tickets, $100,000 from football scoreboard advertising and $40,000 from basketball scoreboard advertising, $420,000 from the rental of the loges at Stambaugh Stadium and $50,000 from selling the rights to radio and television broadcasts.
This year the athletics department projects income of $405,000 from the sale of football tickets and another $160,000 from basketball tickets. Both figures are “aggressive goals” at this time of year, Strollo allows.
Football scoreboard advertising will be $110,000 (up $10,000), basketball scoreboard advertising $40,000 (no change) while broadcast rights remain the same and rental of loges at Stambaugh will be $10,000 more than in 2012.
The 2012 budget shows that, at $259,700, football head coach Eric Wolford is the second-highest paid employee at YSU. Only the president, Cynthia Anderson, earns more at $375,000. The chief academic officer, provost Ikram Khawaja, was paid $184,279. The vice president of finance, Eugene Grilli, earned $175,393 and the general counsel, Holly Jacobs, was paid $135,673.
The budget for faculty compensation this year is $44.41 million, up slightly from $44.18 million in 2012, while the budget for staff is $35.68 million, down from $37.30 million last year.
While Wolford’s compensation puts him in the top third of head coaches in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, the men’s head basketball coach, Jerry Slocum, “is dead last by a long way” in the Horizon League at $137,443, Strollo says. The average head coach for men’s basketball in the Horizon League (including Slocum) is $400,000, a figure that exceeds what Slocum and his assistant coaches are paid in total.
The women’s basketball head coach, coach, Robert Bolden, is paid less than $100,000 and he and his staff receive $254,600.
In some sports, such as track and golf, no student receives a full scholarship, Strollo points out. They share them. The men’s track and cross-country teams have 45 athletes who share 7.5 scholarships.
The cheerleaders are allocated $45,791, which includes a half scholarship of $8,000. Strollo estimates each member of the squad receives $200 per semester and points out that they cheer at every football game and every men and women’s basketball game.
The equipment room manager will be paid roughly $50,000 this year, Strollo, says, less than the $63,540 the just-retired manager of 30 years earned. If that sounds excessive, Strollo points out, the manager is responsible for fitting student athletes in all sports, not just football, with protective gear and ensuring they have the equipment they need. Measuring and fitting the athletes is as much as art as a science, Strollo says, and tracking inventory for up to 400 athletes can be challenging.
As reporters left suite of offices where the athletics department is housed, Strollo pointed to the worn and faded red rug they were walking across they were and directed their attention to the black Pete the Penguin mat 10 feet inside the main door. The mat covers a hole worn in the rug, he informed the reporters, because he has deferred long overdue improvements in the suite.
SOURCE: Figures in this article can be found in the 24-page YSU Fiscal Year 2013 Operating Budget: General Fund & Auxiliaries, the 22-page 2012 budget, and the more detailed 2012 budget (nearly 200 pages) and 2012 listing of compensation paid YSU employees available in the Maag Library. Athletics director Ron Strollo provided the scholarships numbers.
FIRST PUBLISHED in the September 2012 print edition of The Business Journal, in subscribers' mailboxes today. To subscribe, CLICK HERE.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.