Posted by bambi2godzilla on 3/4/2008, 10:01 am
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Deficit gnaws at Fresno State
Budget gap looms amid expansion plan.
George Hostetter
The Fresno Bee
3/03/08
As if finding money for two new sports next year wasn't challenging enough, the Fresno State athletic department now must tackle a projected budget deficit of more than a half-million dollars.
Members of Fresno State's governing board for athletic finances were told Monday afternoon that the 2007-08 budget is headed toward a $538,000 deficit, due in part to shortfalls in revenues from football and men's basketball.
Fresno State Athletic Corp. board member Vinci Ricchiuti gave the brief report, and no documentation was made public. Directors, led by board chairman Paul Oliaro, engaged in an equally brief review of the projected deficit.
No one suggested gate revenues will pick up, and the men's basketball team's last home game is Saturday against Nevada. Only about 4% of the projected $8.2 million in gate receipts comes from spring sports.
Athletic director Thomas Boeh said Monday evening that revenue for season-ticket sales in football and men's basketball fell $300,000 to $400,000 short of expectations.
He said the university hoped walk-up ticket sales in both sports would cut into the shortfall. Walk-up ticket sales in football were decent, but not as good as hoped in men's basketball, he said.
Boeh said Fresno State will attack the deficit on two fronts.
First, the university will watch expenses and try to boost gate revenue in baseball and softball. He said the athletic department might wait to fill job vacancies until the start of a new fiscal year on July 1.
Second, Fresno State will explore the money-making recommendations in a recent report from the Commission on Athletics Finances. These include higher student fees for sports.
Fresno State always will have budget challenges because a Division I program has high fixed costs such as salaries, travel and scholarships, Boeh said.
"Our role right now is to get this fiscal year as close to [a surplus] as possible," Boeh said.
Fresno State athletic expenditures outpaced revenues by nearly $6.7 million in fiscal years 1997 through 2005. Boeh arrived at Fresno State from Ohio University in mid-2005 with a reputation for running a tight fiscal ship. The athletic department had balanced budgets in his first two years.
The 2007-08 budget projected a record $23.4 million in revenues, but only a $5,000 surplus. University officials said their revenue projections were conservative, a budgeting lesson they'd learned the hard way the previous year when walk-up ticket sales for a mediocre football team fell about $200,000 short of expectations.
Coach Pat Hill's team rebounded in 2007, going 9-4 and beating Big 12 Conference member Kansas State at Bulldog Stadium. But interest among ticket-buying fans apparently didn't rebound as strongly.
Fresno State also must find by next fiscal year an estimated $1.5 million to pay for the new women's lacrosse and swimming and diving teams, which begin competing in 2008-09.
And university officials make no secret that they share the concern of Bulldog Foundation Annual Fund leaders about the future of that key fundraising group. BDF membership is down and pledges in 2007 fell 6.3% from the previous year.
The Bulldog Foundation Annual Fund pays for most of the program's athletic scholarships.
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