Report regarding the proposal of Dr. Ron Seeger opposing the addition of fifteen scholarships to the football program

WKU University Senate

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• . Fiscal Affai r s Committee , Faculty Senate ' D. W. Bai ley, Chairman Report t o Faculty Senate The attached report was written some 10 days ago, shortly af te r the last Faculty Senate Nee t ing . I have been holding it wanting to be sure that I wanted to verbally present it to the Senate at the March meeting . As you will notice , it is not a committee report --j ust my personal r esponse t o the Seeger and Buckman pr oposals . I fel t the Seeger proposal in particular was poor ly developed , poorly presented, full of vari-.ables , not backed with anything substantial , etc. I was at the point of standing to comment on the pro-posal when Dr. Buckman put the motion on the floor that gave the Seeger proposal to our committee . After the proposal was ours to deal with, I did not fee l that ~ comments (which I had planned to make) would be appropri -a te. Additional thought regarding a plan of attack on the subsequent Buckman motion did not l ead me to anything but hopel essness. I am convinced that the fastest way to make us (as a corrunittee) look like a 11 bunchll of fools would be to go to the univers i ty budge t committee and ask for what Dr. Buckman wanted us to ask. The egg on our faces ( and those of the whole Senate) would appear when after sitting i n on the budge t consider ations , the Senate would not be able t o agree on any area of the university' s expenditure which should be reduced or done away with . I personally place both motions in the catagory of ill - conceived and short- sighted. Unles s some thing occurs to change rnlf mind, I will present the attached report a s coming from myself. I would, however , appreciate your allowi ng me to use you as a soundinr, board. I am not asking you t o agree with t he position I have taken, but I would like to hear your reaction and any suggestions you would like to make. If you feel I am in error, please let me know. I can always make a l ot more changes. M ..... P, 1'171 , • REPatT to the Fnculty Scnntll r e r,nrdinr, the Propo3Tl.l of Dr . Ron Seeger, sub-mitted to the Senate By Dr. Al Peterson (February, 1979 tleetlng). FROM the Fiscal Affairs Committee Chairman. Data presented i n this report were taken from the 1976-77 expenditure record of \.,'estern Kentucky University (Post Closing Trial Bnlance) . The same data are now available 1n the 1977 - 70 record; however, this record has nat., been received as yet . The proposal submitted qy Dr . Seeger is that the Senate go on record (and recommend to the regents) as opposing the addition of 15 scholarships (Grants-in-Aid) to the f ootball program, the idea being that this money could be added to faculty salaries . In addition, the proposal statEment includes at l east six statements, the purpose of which is to support the proposal. Due to the character of the support statements, both they and the proposal are dealt with in this r eport. The support statements are repeated below with accompanying data and reaction by the Fiscal Affairs Committee Chairman. 1. That the current value of a Grant-in-Aid is about $3000. This is probably rather accurate, as the value for the same in 1976- 77 was . $2605. I would specuJ.ate that $2650 to $2950 wouJ.d be more accurate. Data from the 1977-78 Post Closing Trial Balance will allow a better estimate. 2. That the football program operates at a considerable deficit . The program does in fact operate at a considerable deficit. During 1976- 77 the total of football expenditures was $257,722. Gate receipts totaled $66, 716. Revenue from Student Athletic Fees totaled $18~ , 737; some substantial part of this (probably about ~O%) should be associated with the football program as revenue . This would suggest something on the order of a $110,000 deficit. [ The same type analysis applied to the basketball program (and assuming that about 50% of Student Athletic Fees should apply) would indicate that basketball probabl y operates at a minimum of a $45,000 excess]. I t is my opinion that more meaningful figures can be dealt with, if the entire athletic pro-gram is considered rather than just football. In a later part of this report that approach will be taken. 3. That decreases are projected in student enrollment. The trend seems evident, but members of the Senate did not seem to agree as to how extensive these decreases might be. 4. That possible l osses in faculty positions may occur. Again, there is no basis for predicting this; however, it is always a possibility. S. That no increases of a similar nature have been made i n academic scholarships . This statement seems to be irrelevant to the purpose of the proposal -- to find more money for faculty salaries . In • page 2 addition , it should be pointed out that grantinR in-~tate tuition rates t o certain southern Indiana counties has probably been far more effective in turnine up ~arm bodies than doubling the value or the numbers of schol arships would be . 6 . That t here are positive r ewar ds in belancing to the ave . There are many who do not agree necessarily wit h t his pos~tion . What would the ave be wi t hout Western? " The proposal itself seems to be rather short - sighted . If it 1s Q good t hing that t he number of Grants- i n-Aid not be increased ( for t he reasons sug-gested 1n the proposal), then it ought to be a better thing t o propose that ,-~. the number· of Grants-in-Aid be decreased, or that all Grants - in-Aid to ath- .( letes be eliminated. This would at least teraporarily provide some additional I q '" funds for faculty salaries. Elimination of all Grants- i n-Aid would have -!J~ ' ~ilc released (in 1976-77) $285, h35 . This would have allowed slightly over a 3 one per cent across- t he -board faculty salary raise . The second assignment (the Buckman Motion) given the Fiscal Affai r s Committee at the last Senate meeting is closely r elated to the above discuss-ion of the Seeger Progosal . The Fiscal Affairs Committee was asked to seek to meet with unive r sity fiscal officers now working on the budget and attempt to deternine by stuctring the budget if any funds could be f ound which might be di verted into faculty salaries. The Fiscal Affairs Committee has not met wi th the appropriate university administrators (nor has the chairman) . A major obs tacle which the Chairman of t he Fiscal Affairs Committee sees 1n undertaking a~ s t udy of this type 1s that he would like the Senate to i nstr uc t him as t o which areas of t he universi ty operation it would like to see reduced in the budget or deleted f r om the budge t . Actually, if the Senate could agree on this, the work of the Committee would be done . The Chai r man of the Fiscal Affairs Committee has not come iog of the Senate having done nothing , however . Having spent studying the university's expenditure r ecords , he is pr epared some areas whi ch the Senate might wish to consider for cuts . follOW's : to this meet-many hours to suggest They are as ~ 1 , '~ ,Io3 J1 1. Delete the total Inter collegiate Athletic Program. The total cost tf') , i n 1976-77 was $792 , 608, r evepue was $336,955 , and the deficit was ~~~ $h55 ,753 . The pertinent quetition that follows is, " Is the athletic ,{', c /'t il program worth $1.t55 ,753?" I asked six persons (independently) to tell J4 ;'1 , me wha t they thought would happen to student enrollment if Western suddenly disbanded i ntercollegiate athletics. I got almost exactly the same response f r om each . According to them I might expect a response similar to announcing that the ship was sinking or that I had bubonic plague . Their estimate was that it wouldnt t take over a year to r educe the number of s t udents by half . 2 . University Farm. It operated at loss of $S, 47u . That isn 't much , but think of the increase in available funds if the whole thing were sold . • page 3 ). Incidentally , we don't want t o sny anything negative about the areas of Food Services, Housing, and the University Centers; they bring in much more than their cost of operation. Some of that excess may be directed toward debt retirement, however . b. Speech Clinic. It cos t us $7, 840. We could get along without that. 5. Hardin Planetarium. It cost $ul,057 to operate. We could close it down and try to s e l l i t to uHungry Jac~' for a hat. " 6 . Campus Radio Station. It cost $9,248 . 7 . University Honors Program. It cos t $1...,67). 1'11 0 ' . I' 8. Faculty Senate . This f rneddllng , but it cost $1,107 . , • • 9. International Student Affairs Off i ce . is considerably larger now than it was lot here. It cost $8,995, in 1976-77. We and this figure RtJ~ could save a / 111-1' f ,,7, (P" ~ 10. University Sponsored Faculty Research, and Instruction Improvement, Grants . This cost $49, 744. Since I got one of these for this coming swnmer, I guess we had better keep that item. 1 v _17 - $'3. 1t)'f ~'y' 1-';' 17 ' , 11-7' q 7, 'f~9 11. Sabbatical Leave Program. There is no way to estimate the cost of this program, as much of it is absorbed within the departments. 12. Health Services . This cost us $224 ,406 . their morning-after pi lls somewhere else. The students could get ",~/!rJ ;) -t'l/ q 1/ 13. Univers i ty Recreational Activities Program. don't know what this is, but it sounds like able to cut out . This cost $75,252. I something we might be 14. Graduate Programs (especially those with few students). Both your guess and mf guess as to the cost of this would probably be too law. f1~ 1'·' ;;,,01 15. Department of Public Safety. This cost $379 , 541. We could get rid u- f I • 16. of this and park anywhere we wanted to. This would solve two problems considered by the Senate . Univers i ty Attorney. view of t he fact t hat l egal services, there office . ., ,, 4,1/ /) 'rhat office cost the wrlversity $)5 , 982. In 4" the regents r ecently approved securing outside should be no reason why we would miss this , .. ~.J c "', 17. Office of PUblic Affai rs and Community Relations . This cost $170,563. 18. Alumni Affairs and Placement Office . This cost $81, 508 to operate . We could do away with t hi s office and kill two birds with one stone: Save money, and take care of the rumored need for a new president's home . • 19. Adminis tration Undi str ibuted (p. Ih2) . This amounted to $)91,918 . Si.nco it. would appear no one 'Wanted to claim t his , it probably ought to be the firs t area of the budget deleted . Actually, it includes 8 number of expenditures which cannot be assigned to anr one office . 20 . Univers i t y School Relations . could do its own recruiting . This cost $102 , 971. Each depar~ent The Biology Department does , 21 . Office of University Publications. This cos t $12) , 9h2. " 22 . College Deans . I have heard numer ous faculty say that their college deans didn't do anything, so maybe we could cut out that level of organization. That would save $784,075. Although it is a smaller number, s aying " three-quarters of a million dollars" sounds like more i ". , , money. /,o/o/,"'/"1¥ ~r- £J~ ~9%~~ 23. Etc. 50 what do we do i n order t o find more money for faculty sal ar ies? Ther e are many places where cut-backs probably could be made. The area of 11 5ervicesn (to students, to faculty, and to the public) could be reduced. This is a 'very heavy segment of the operati on of the Univer sit y . Or we might want to phase out some of t he more expensive programs, especi ally whe r e there are small enrollments . In addition, there conceivably are far t oo many assistant deans and staff assistants. And on and on and on one might continue in listing areas . In Summary: The much needed boost in faculty salar ies can come about (on a limited allocation) only at the expense of some program, some service , someone else's job, etc. It takes approximatel y $200, 000 to provide an increase across- the-board in faculty salaries of one per cent. I t would take a lot of cutting to get salaries back to the purchasing power of 1972 . So where do we suggest cuts be made. I will speculate that ther e might not be one single item in the budget which at leas t 50% of the f aculty would think ought t o be deleted. As for myself , I probably could come up with ten to t wenty areas in the budget which I think would never be missed if deleted from the budget. But could I ge t 50% of the faculty (much l ess the whole univers i ty conununity ) to agree with me? No ~ Although I am very hesitant to mention this, you and I are caught i n a supply and demand pinch. I wan t to see salaries where they ought to be as badly as anyone; and I think the Faculty Senate should keep this concern continuously be rare administrators , the regents, and legislator s . But, i f projections on student enrollment are corr ect, and if we don ' t successfully counter these t r ends , the day will come when we will wonder what was so bad about a 4% raise . Don W. Ba iley, Chairman Fiscal Affairs, Faculty Senate 

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