CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas awarded 18 athletic department employees, mostly coaches, performance bonuses during the past academic year, even as faculty members did not get a cost-of-living raise, records show.
The majority of the $87,166 in bonuses was privately funded, while the remainder came from public funds, specifically past salary savings in the athletic department, records and UCA officials said.
Confirmation of the bonuses came less than two weeks after a Sept. 11 faculty senate meeting where some professors expressed concerns to UCA President Tom Courtway about athletic financing, in part over continued reliance on some housing revenue.
That issue came up after faculty members learned the board of trustees had approved salary raises for some coaches at a Sept. 7 meeting. Courtway said Sept. 11 that those raises were privately funded.
Still, the concerns prompted UCA’s student newspaper, The Echo, to carry a harsh editorial this week suggesting Courtway initially should have been more open about the raises.
The employees getting by far the most incentive bonuses during the past academic year were the head football and head women’s basketball coaches. Their bonuses were privately funded, previously provided for in their contracts and approved by the board of trustees.
The remaining bonuses, given to other athletic employees, totaled $51,000 and never went through the board, according to records obtained Wednesday and Thursday under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
Bonuses for assistant coaches “were not part of any contract but understood by the coaches through the athletic department,” UCA spokesman Jeff Pitchford said in an e-mail.
Courtway said Thursday that in July he, Athletic Director Brad Teague and others discussed the incentive bonuses and concluded it would be “the better course” to take the money from the foundation’s Purple Circle, or private athletic fund in the future.
“We could use the salary savings for other things,” such as equipment and other capital costs, Courtway said. “That’s what we’re going to do in the future.”
On why the $51,000 in bonuses did not go through the board, Courtway said, “[That was] the way it’s traditionally been done; it just never was. ... They generally never were put on a personnel list” released after board meetings. “That’s been the practice for ... several years.”
Earlier this month, the board openly discussed and approved $1,000 publicly funded bonuses for faculty and staff members.
Courtway said he has “no problem whatsoever” with putting any incentive bonuses on the board’s personnel lists in the future as long as privately funded ones are so noted.
Records show head football Coach Clint Conque got $13,500 in bonuses during the past academic year. All were incentive payments awarded in December and January except for $5,000 that went with a contract extension.
Matthew Daniel, the head women’s basketball coach last year, was awarded $22,666 in incentive bonuses in March. Daniel no longer is with UCA.
Other athletic employee bonuses ranged from $5,000 each for six employees to $500 for one.
It’s unclear exactly how much of the $51,000 came from private money. A UCA chart indicates $80,520.24 was due in private funds from the foundation, but that total includes the two head coaches’ bonuses and apparently the $30,399 Conque gets annually for his television and radio show. Courtway said he talked with members of the faculty senate’s executive committee Thursday and told them about the incentive bonuses. They had been unaware of them, he said.
Faculty-senate President Kevin Browne said later that because the public portion of the athletic bonuses came from salary savings, “it didn’t impact the budget negatively.”
Referring to his meeting with Courtway, Browne said, “From what I have heard today ... [these] won’t be done this way any longer.”
“I’m glad that there seems to be an increasing understanding that the faculty and staff have a real sensitivity to these bonuses and raises at a time when they have not been receiving [cost-of-living adjustment raises],” Browne said.
Don Bradley, another faculty senator, said that “for years the academic end [at UCA] has suffered because we’ve not had enough money.”
“It’s time that the academic area at least gets equal treatment, and I have a concern that right now there’s not that equal treatment,” Bradley said.
“It’s time for the academic end to start receiving whatever anybody [else] at the university is receiving. That’s just a sense of fairness. ... I don’t care if it would be athletics or ... the music department or wherever it would be,” he added.
“What you do for one group, you should be willing to do for another group,” Bradley said. “I’m not saying that those [incentive bonuses] weren’t justified. I’m just saying that everybody should be treated on an equal basis.”
At the Sept. 11 faculty-senate meeting, Bradley repeatedly noted he is an athletics supporter.
If coaches get rewarded for players’ academic success — a provision in Conque’s and Daniel’s contracts — then faculty members also should be awarded for their students’ success, Bradley said.
“To my knowledge, that hasn’t happened really. I hope someday it will,” Bradley said.
Bradley, a marketing professor and executive director of UCA’s Small Business Advancement National Center, said he believes anything dealing with salaries should go through the board. “That way the faculty, the staff and the students can voice their opinions,” he said.
Conque’s team went 9-4 in 2011 and made a second-round appearance in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The women’s basketball team went 24-7 last season.
The only other head coach to get a performance bonus during the past academic year was David McFatrich, whose volleyball team went 17-14 and was the East Division champion. He got $2,000, which his personnel-action form says was to “be paid from private funds.”
McFatrich did not have a contract, Pitchford said.
Head men’s basketball Coach Corliss Williamson’s team went 8-21 last season, and he did not get a bonus.
Here are the employees in addition to the head coaches who got the athletic bonuses: Dan Augustine, assistant football coach, $5,000. Henry Briscoe, strength and conditioning coach, $1,000. Nathan Brown, assistant football coach, $5,000. Jeremy Hammock, “limited earning” assistant football coach, $1,000. Chris Hampton, “limited earning” assistant football coach, $1,000. Jeffrey Hay, assistant volleyball coach, $1,000 with note that it was from “private funds.” Brooks Hollingsworth, assistant football coach, $5,000. Anthony Kemper, assistant women’s basketball coach, $4,250. Matthew Kubik, assistant football coach, $5,000. Cody Moore, “limited earning” assistant football coach, $1,000. Brandon Nagle, assistant football coach, $5,000. Caronica Randle, assistant women’s basketball coach, $4,250. Niel Swanson, football, audiovisual coordinator, $500. Kendrick Wilhite, assistant football coach, $5,000. Matthew Williamson, assistant football coach, $5,000. In addition to Daniel, Pitchford said, Kemper, Hay, Nagle and Randle no longer work at UCA.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/21/2012