Friday, April 17, 1998 | 8:27 a.m.
Despite a banner season from men's basketball and despite football breaking even financially, UNLV's athletic department is dealing with a deficit for the upcoming fiscal year that is estimated between $750,000 and $1 million, the SUN has learned.
But if you believe athletic director Charles Cavagnaro, the shortcoming is a rite of spring as much as Opening Day of the baseball season and the cherry blossoms blooming on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The department is mandated to turn in a balanced budget to the university before it goes to the Board of Regents. The overall budget is expected to be presented to the Regents June 18-19 in Elko.
The athletic budget for the 1998-99 academic year is projected to be $10.8 million.
Cavagnaro, who is finishing his third year as A.D., said: "It's not any different than any of the previous years I've been here. We knew going in there would be a deficit situation to deal with.
"Knowing it and dealing with it are two different things, however. But my sense of it is not an extraordinary situation or a panic situation."
Perhaps. But the coaches whose budgets may be cut by as much as four percent to offset the deficit don't see it in the same light.
"If they try to cut us" football coach Jeff Horton said, "it would be a big fight.
"I don't know if I'd win, but I definitely would go down fighting."
Other coaches echoed similar sentiments, but refused to speak for the record for fear of retribution from the senior athletic department staff.
Big surprise
Horton said an April 2 memorandum from assistant A.D. Tom Gabbard explaining the situation caught him and his colleagues off guard.
"I was surprised," Horton said. "I thought everything was running smoothly."
The memo cited a deficit of $750,000 and asked coaches to contribute ideas that might eliminate the deficit.
Four reasons were cited for the projected shortfall:
* A 3 percent cost of living allowance in payroll amounting to $110,000.
* A rise in scholarship costs of approximately $100,000.
* Funding for compliance with gender equity, roughly $293,000.
* An employee benefits package, which includes medical insurance, costing $20,000.
Gabbard said the remainder of the deficit is attributed to salaries, performance bonuses and miscellaneous expenses.
Halfway there
Since the memo was released two weeks ago, the deficit has been cut in half. But Norval Pohl, UNLV's vice president for finance and administration, said more revisions need to be made.
Approximately $380,000 has to be found between now and the time the budget is submitted.
"We've sent them back to work on it," Pohl said. "In my opinion, it's not sufficiently close enough. I did not feel comfortable with some of their initial revenue projections."
Pohl didn't have actual numbers available other than to say the $380,000 is a legitimate number to work with.
Cavagnaro said cutting the coaches' budgets would be a last resort.
"Absolutely," he said. "We're going to get there. How we get there is the big challenge. Hopefully, we don't have to cut any team's budget."
Finding the cash
Cuts already have been made in sports marketing. Other cuts may come from travel. Alternative funding for scholarships are being explored through other institutional aid such as work-study.
But the athletic department doesn't have a long-term plan per se to deal with the rising costs of education. An out-of-state scholarship at UNLV is worth $13,801 and 219 scholarships were awarded this past year.
However, as the costs of scholarships and fees have risen, the revenue to pay for those costs has not kept pace. Nor has meeting the rising costs of medical insurance, team travel, equipment and other necessities for running a sports program.
Cavagnaro said the logical answer is to increase revenue streams. He said the Western Athletic Conference hasn't produced the amount of revenue he thought it would.
"We thought we'd be getting a larger slice of the pie," he said.
No blank checks
Cavagnaro said fund raising in the athletic department is being geared toward future projects such as a new softball field, paying off the remaining debt on the Lied Athletic Complex and providing funding for a basketball practice facility.
Jim Bolla, UNLV's head of athletic development, said the days of going to a hotel-casino and having it write you a check are over.
"It's not like the old days where if you were a coach and you needed some help to finance a trip you could see someone you knew at a casino and you'd have the money you needed in five minutes," Bolla said.
"Today, you're dealing with boards of directors and you're one of 12 causes they're dealing with."
UNLV also has a different policy for fund raising. Everything is coordinated through the school's foundation. Which means if there's a potential donor who wants to give $50,000 to soccer, that person can't be approached until after the UNLV Foundation has given its approval.
Cavagnaro says it's a good system.
"The left hand has to know what the right hand is doing," he said. "I wouldn't go out and approach someone without first talking to the Foundation."
Bolla said coaches are still encouraged to raise funds for their individual program, or "soft money" as it is commonly referred. They just need to work with his office and with the UNLV Foundation.
"We're able to avoid stepping on each other that way," he said. "But there's still a need for us to go out and generate money."
One way would be to increase football revenue.
Breaking even
For the last two years, Horton's football program has not lost money, a far cry from when he first took over in 1993 and there was a deficit of more than $1 million.
"We're paying our way," he said. "Obviously, if we can win a few more games, that'll generate more interest and we'll sell more tickets."
Basketball, which raised $4.4 million in scholarship donor season ticket revenue, should remain a growth item. Bill Bayno's club has produced back-to-back 20-win seasons and the team is coming off its first trip to the NCAA Tournament in seven years.
But others in the athletic department think there's a way to reduce costs without effecting the quality of the programs.
Spend wisely
Scheduling smarter is one way for a program to save money. Hosting more games and playing road games closer to Las Vegas would reduce travel costs immensely.
Traveling smarter is another way to reduce spending. Buying a 21-day advance-trip purchase airline ticket compared to a 3-day advance ticket would save close to 70 percent on the cost. Or having an in-house travel person handle all travel for the school's 15 sports would produce greater savings.
Recruiting locally would save thousands of dollars on out-of-state tuition. Nevada also has reciprocal agreements with other states, including New Mexico, Colorado and Alaska, where residents of those states who attend UNLV pay in-state tuition, approximately $8,000, compared to the $13,801 out-of-staters pay.
Not abusing luxury items, such as cellular phones and computers, also would save money. Implementing the above policies across the board would save the athletic department $300,000, the theory goes. And that's a conservative guess according to a department member who has looked at the cost-cutting measures.
Gabbard said the athletic department will increase dialogue with the coaches pertaining to their individual operating budgets.
Cavagnaro didn't seem as surprised by the shortcoming as some of his coaches.
Saw it coming?
"How do you think we knew this was coming?" he said. "There are things that we have to deal with every year and when they come around, we deal with them."
For the first time in several years, UNLV will not end the current fiscal year in a deficit situation. That would preclude the athletic department from taking from next year's budget to balance this year's, which was $9.8 million.
And that would be good news on the fiscal front.
"I'm hopeful that's going to be the case," Cavagnaro said.
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