MSU board to vote on athletic cuts Friday

“It’s their decision ultimately,” said Paul Kincaid, MSU chief of staff, about the board’s discretion on the cuts.

The proposed cuts – men’s indoor and outdoor track, men’s cross country and men’s and women’s tennis – are expected to pass the board’s vote.

At the Dec. 8 Faculty Senate meeting where he announced his choices for the cuts, Nietzel said he expects to save $229,000 next school year, the first year the five teams would not compete.

Nietzel formed a committee in August to look into ways of trimming the athletic department’s budget, which is $11.1 million for the current fiscal year.

The university is contributing $5.1 million from its general fund of $150 million, while athletics is raising the remaining $6 million with revenue sources such as ticket sales, donations, sponsorships and media contracts.

Kincaid said MSU was warned by Missouri’s Office of Administration that the school may receive a 10 percent to 12 percent reduction in state appropriations in the coming fiscal year.

But, he said, the proposed athletic cuts are not directly connected to expected budget cuts and have been discussed for years as a way of making surviving teams more competitive.

“(Nietzel) formed this committee … long before we talked about potential budget cuts,” Kincaid said. “We were headed this direction regardless.”

Scholarships, which account for the bulk of the athletic department’s expenditures, will be honored as long as an athlete on one of the cut teams doesn’t transfer from MSU.

Bill O’Neill, associate director of athletics, said 33 of the 41 affected athletes are on at least partial scholarships. He said 17 are on full scholarships that cost the university $11,008 per year for in-state students and $15,928 per year for out-of-state students.

“(The cost of scholarships are) going to go up each year, as these costs continue to inflate and escalate,” O’Neill said. “Our tuition … that’s the thing that kills us in athletics.”

Kincaid said the proposed savings would be factored into the school’s FY 2007 budget, which starts in July.

“It will likely be split in some fashion, where athletics will keep part of it and part of it will go back to the university’s general fund,” Kincaid said.

Click here for the full story from Dec. 19.

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