UCA shifts on coach-pay subsidies

Sunday, December 2, 2012

— The University of Central Arkansas will end a long-contentious practice of subsidizing coaches’ salaries with money from its tutoring center and admissions office, starting with the next academic year.

UCA President Tom Courtway, Athletic Director Brad Teague and others told a faculty committee reviewing athletic spending about the plan in a question-and-answer memorandum recently. In an e-mail interview later, Teague confirmed that a plan to get those subsidies down to zero is “definite.”

The 49-page memorandum - provided to Brian Bolter, chairman of a faculty affairs committee reviewing athletic spending - also revealed that the amount of the Academic Success Tutoring Center’s money going to athletic salaries is more than had been previously revealed.

The center’s budget for salaries is $217,525, of which $98,318 is for coaches, the administrators told the faculty in the memorandum. That compares with $72,318on coaches’ salaries that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had tracked in October.

Among nonathletic areas on campus that “for many years” helped pay athletic salaries, the memorandum said, were Academic Success; the Health Physical Education and Recreation Center; admissions; development; and various instructional roles.

“Three years ago, $500,000 was set aside by the University for the [Academic Success Center] to assist with coaches’ salaries,” the administrators wrote. “This fiscal year, that number is down to [about] $98,000. Next year, it will be zero.”

They said salary subsidies from admissions also “will be moved to athletics” next academic year. Currently, $51,138.67 goes to coaches’ salaries from that department, the administrators wrote.

As for what input the admissions office’s administration has in hiring and firing coaches whose salaries are subsidized by that office, the administrators answered, “None.”

They said the planned elimination of the salary subsidies from admissions and Academic Success “will place all athletics salaries in athletics except for those in fundraising (Development) and the several coaches who instruct in various departments.” UCA already has quit using Health Physical Education and Recreation Center funds for coach salaries, they said.

In October, the Democrat-Gazette reported that not one of the four UCA football coaches whose salaries were being subsidized this year with tutoring-center funds was scheduled to work a single hour in the Academic Success Center this semester. Rather, 12 other coaches were doing so.

The coaches work as study-hall monitors, not tutors, in the center, Teague said. The four coaches who didn’t work this semester will work there next semester, he said.

Bolter, the faculty committee’s chairman, said the panel generally believes “the athletic program is being run really well. But we want to make sure we keep a balance” with academics “a healthy balance.”

The review, however, has “put the administration on notice that we need to make sure that this balance is maintained,” Bolter said.

“The move to Division I has been costly to the university. That fulcrum needs to be more fully focused on academics. I think we’ve gotten the attention of the administration.”

The memorandum also addressed privately funded raises that UCA gave earlier this year to coaches, and noted that Teague has said those raises will continue to be privately funded in future years.

In response to a committee request for a “Memorandum of Understanding” between the athletic department and the UCA Foundation on this funding issue, the administrators replied, “No MOU is necessary.”

In an e-mail interview, Teague was later asked how UCA could be sure that the raises would still be privately funded in five years, considering the administration and the athletic director could change by then.

“By answering the question from the Faculty Affairs II Committee, the [memorandum of understanding] is unnecessary,” Teague replied. “The answer to the question permanently places in writing the procedure which will be followed.”

Bolter said this topic is “one of the areas that we’re going to follow up on.” He said he hopes the board of trustees also will state that the raises at issue should continue to be privately funded.

At one point in the memorandum, the administrators said the board of trustees’ chairman had “stated that [athletic] bonuses ... were part of contracts.”

Several coaches got performance bonuses during the past academic year, with most of them being publicly funded.

Yet the only performance bonuses UCA awarded that were tied to contracts were those of football Coach Clint Conque and the former head coach for the women’s basketball team, Matthew Daniel. The other bonuses were not tied to any contracts.

Still, in response to a faculty question, UCA said the university is obligated this academic year to pay bonuses to some coaching staff members. The school released a chart, not a contract, as the document containing the guidelines on when assistant coaches get incentive bonuses and how much.

Courtway has said that all such bonuses will be paid with private funds in the future.

Also, in September, Teague said the annual funding difference in athletics since UCA has moved from Division II to Division I of the NCAA had risen not exactly $500,000 but that the sum was “not far off.” In the memorandum he sent to faculty members, he said he had cited that figure as only hypothetical.

However, a chart provided to faculty members shows that fiscal 2012 expenses under Division I totaled $9,437,689 compared with $5,009,314 in fiscal 2006, when UCA was still in Division II and one year after it began the five-year process of changing divisions.

The chart also indicates that fiscal 2012 expenses if UCA were still in Division II would total $5,747,250, a difference of $3,690,439. The chart, included in the Nov. 14 memorandum, notes that the Division II figure in 2012 was based on today’s dollar value of $5,009,314.

Overall, Bolter said committee members have been “really pleased at how serious and responsible the administration was” in dealing with the panel.

“This review, I think, has put to rest a number of concerns, and I think the openness of the administration” has helped, he said.

“We’re just trying to make sure there’s a reasonable balance and a healthy tension” between academics and athletics, Bolter said.

Arkansas, Pages 15 on 12/02/2012