Local opinion: U of A cuts should start at the top

The predictable bloodletting has begun on the UA campus, the result of financial mismanagement primarily from the top levels of the president’s office and the athletics department. The sad reality is that employees down the personnel ladder, workers not responsible for the poor fiscal decisions will be the first out the door. The Arizona Board of Regents’ focus should instead begin at the top.

Throughout my 32 years working for Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) at the UA I worked for four different athletic directors and five different university presidents. Athletics did not run a deficit until the Robbins/Heeke team arrived. Despite seeing student athletics fees being instituted under that regime, ICA began running financial red ink. The result has been tens of millions of unpaid — unpayable? — “loans” gifted from Robbins to Heeke. That’s a taxpayer subsidy for the president’s front row seat in McKale.

The $87 million lifeboat floated to ICA by the president is the result of excessive spending and misplaced priorities. It was shortly after Robbins’ arrival that his office asked for significant upgrades to his skybox suite. A capital project was approved that included $1.7M in amenities to the presidential suite. Never mind that fans seated on the west side of the stadium, beneath Robbins’ suite are sitting on metal bleachers and using restrooms that could not pass any current building codes if proposed today.

As soon as Jed Fisch was hired as the new football coach Heeke/Robbins authorized a $1.4M upgrade to his office and locker facilities. Included in that project was a barber shop for the players. The final cost of the project was just under $2M. At that same time the UA was spending $2.7M on upgrades to the baseball facility out at Hi Corbett field. Add to that their golden parachutes to two former football coaches, the combined total reaching nearly $13M and it’s no wonder that Robbins’ office was asked to toss ICA the $87M gift. It’s a gift until the ‘loan’ is repaid.

When I started working for ICA the Associate Athletics Director under Cedric Dempsey was Bob Bockrath. I remember sitting in Bockey’s office one day and him sharing his thoughts on cost escalation in intercollegiate athletics. His comment was that Arizona should simply recognize who ‘we’ are and understand that competing with major football powers such as Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State was a financial model that would fail. Those schools have athletics budgets of between $150M and $200M annually. Their football stadiums are filled with over 100,000 fans at every game. For Arizona to pretend it can compete with that level of financial investment is a fool’s errand. And in fact under the current regime, they’ve demonstrated that to be true.

There are roughly 230 Division 1 schools that have a football program. Fewer than 2 dozen make a profit. The mission of the University of Arizona is research, development and education. Under the state constitution the charge is to make the cost “as nearly free as possible.” As far back as 1935 the Arizona Supreme Court interpreted that to mean colleges could not charge fees that are excessive or unreasonable. Charging a student fee to subsidize improvements to the president’s suite, upgrades to a newly hired football coaches office that include a barber shop while simultaneously paying north of $13M to two previous coaches and bailing out the athletics department with an $87M unpayable loan is fiscally irresponsible. The Board of Regents must hold those who are in decision-making roles accountable.