My Message To Fee Committee: Hold Athletics Accountable
Here is a copy of the email I sent to Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC) members this week.
The athletics program must take decisive action to exit its dependence of Student Services Fee (SSF) money or else risk losing its funding from The Student Services Fee.
Take a look.
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Hello Justin,
Congratulations on your appointment to The Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC). I am a UT-Tyler alumnus and I write an opinion blog about university policy and events called The Campus Conservative.
I am writing to ask you to take up a greater leadership role within the committee by insisting that the athletics program submit a proposal to increase the athletics fee in Fall 2023 to an amount that allows it to migrate its expenses out of The Student Services Fee (SFF) Budget as a condition for your support for its FY24 SSF funding.
The reason I request this is because the university has fallen short of its previous commitment to not grant the athletics program any new SSF funding increases after it discovered in 2019 that the program may be ineligible, and because the athletics program’s actions create space in the athletics fee budget to receive its SSF expenses have been insufficiently significant.
Therefore, the process to transfer SSF expenses to the athletics fee is too slow.
Therefore, I am asking you to take up a leadership role and see to it that the athletics program has proper incentive to exit The SSF Budget in a timely manner.
This is why I request that you insist that it commit to submit an athletics fee increase proposal in Fall 2023 as a condition for your support for its SSF funding for FY24.
In this way, the athletic program will have sufficient motivation to make timely changes that will enable it to exit The SSF Budget and so relieve students of its inappropriate encroachment on their fee budget.
If I can be helpful to you in this, then please feel free to read my previous blog articles about this topic here, here and here, or also feel welcome to email me at this address. I would be happy to talk.
Sincerely,
James Hescock
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In case you are unfamiliar with this issue’s history, then here is the backstory:
The athletics program is ineligible for SSF money given that it does not meet the statutory definition of “student services.” The statute reads, “The term [student services] does not include services for which another fee is charged under another section of this code.” (Texas Education Code, Sec. 54.503.1) So, athletics is ineligible because it has its own fee.
I alerted the athletics program to this in 2017. According to Vice President Ona Tolliver, the university sought guidance about this claim from UT-System lawyers in 2019. Chief Financial Officer Kim Laird told the committee in 2022 that the university decided it would not be prudent to increase the athletics program’s funding within The SSF Budget after guidance from System.
However, the athletics program continues to receive SSF funding increases. For example, the program’s Athletics SSF and Athletics Marketing SSF cost centers both received increases ($875 dollars and $357 dollars, respectively) in FY23. It is admittedly not much. However, athletics’ subsidiaries received much more. Cheerleading and Mascot SSF received an additional $7,130 dollars (a 12 percent increase) and Internet TV Broadcasting SSF received an additional $16,000 dollars (a 217 percent increase). Overall, the athletics program receives 14 percent of The SSF’s $2.5 million budget, or $364,298 dollars.
The university has fallen short of its commitment to refrain from funding increases for athletics in light of these continued increases. Therefore, it is necessary that you take up a leadership role and insist on changes with consequences to uphold accountability.
Along with this, the athletics department’s actions have not been significant enough to see a timely transfer of its funding to the athletics budget. VP Tolliver said at the time (in the 2022 SFAC meeting) that Vice President for Athletics Howard Patterson told SFAC that his department’s commitment to the committee was to move the athletics funding out of The SSF Budget as soon as there was room for it in the athletics fee budget. However, the athletics program did not submit a proposal to increase the athletics fee in FY23. Yet, it did hire a fundraiser in November 2022.
While athletics has taken some action to remedy its encroachment on The SSF Budget, these actions are not decisive enough to result in meaningful change to The SSF Budget any time soon. The students need immediate relief and while you should be cooperative and respectful of others in the university community, your first duty lies to the student constituency which has no obligation to supply additional funding to the athletic program beyond what it has already provides in mandatory athletics fee. The athletics program must move quicker to remedy the situation, which means it must take more significant strides towards a SSF Budget exit.
Therefore, it is necessary that you take up a leadership role and see that this situation changes within a reasonably timely manner.Please insist that the athletics program must commit to submit a fee increase proposal in Fall 2023 that would allow it to migrate its expenses out of The SSF Budget as a condition of your FY24 funding support. If the program declines to accept, then you should oppose its funding.
If you wish to speak further about this or if I can be helpful, then please feel free to review my previous writing on the subject here, here and here, or else please feel comfortable to contact me by email at this address. I am happy to discuss this subject.
Thank you for considering my request.
Sincerely,
James Hescock
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