Local opinion: Robbins' emphasis on athletics needs to end

One department at the financially beleaguered University of Arizona is operating as if the campus has no money problems.

The Athletic Department gets a new director, at $1.2 million. The men’s basketball coach, whose team hasn’t gotten past the Sweet 16, gets a big raise. The new football coach, who won 41% of games in six years at his last school, gets a contract worth millions.

The university fills sports jobs, but leaves more important positions open. The job of provost, who oversees all academics, and a senior vice president post to oversee nearly $1 billion in campus research haven’t been permanently filled in nine months.

Hires and raises are not coming in academics. To the contrary: The campus-wide order is to reduce spending 5%, 10% or even 15%, likely including layoffs.

Employees are worried. Will they keep their jobs? Will departments be consolidated or eliminated? How will the most important people on campus — students — be affected?

“So (basketball coach) Tommy Lloyd is going to get a 28% raise when I might get laid off, and if I don’t, I likely won’t get a raise on my unlivable wage,” a UA employee said to me.

“It’s too emotional. We’re being asked to cut, not as a result of our work or anything we did,” another said.

Atop the Athletic Department, there’s no worry, thanks to UA president Robert Robbins.

His deference to athletics and defenestration of academics has brought us from bewilderment to anger.

The university was quick to note that money for the coaches’ salaries and part of the athletic director’s salary was privately donated.

What mentality do the wealthy have when the best they can do with a gob of money is give to people who are already overcompensated?

Perhaps they can donate so the Athletic Department can pay back the $86 million Robbins lent it from the university.

Once again, this is not a good look for Robbins.

How does he manage to hang on? Oh, wait: He works for the spineless Board of Regents, whose members are willing to acquiesce as he has led the university down a financial hole for nearly seven years.

For those keeping score at home, here’s some of what Robbins and his enablers and abettors on the Board of Regents have accomplished, according to the fiscal 2023 financial review posted on the regents’ website:

A 6% reduction from 2018 to 2023 in undergraduate state resident enrollment, at a university mandated to educate Arizonans. Out-of-state undergraduate enrollment grew 33% in the same period, with those students paying much higher tuition. Where did that increased revenue go?

Revenue growth averaging nearly 5% annually over the last four years, exceeding the rate of inflation. That included revenue last fiscal year that was $342 million over budget. Yet the university has a $177 million deficit, interim CFO John Arnold said.

One financial benchmark called operating margin ratio showed the university lost nearly a penny on every dollar through operations last fiscal year, which the report said “is typically a sign of early financial difficulty.” That previously occurred in 2019, so Robbins and the regents know this hasn’t just cropped up.

The ratio of cash to operating expenses fell to 0.43 in fiscal 2023, nearly half as much as at the average public university. “If the ratio is (at least) 1.0 the university can meet 100% of its annual operating expenses,” the review said.

Robbins and Arnold have contradicted one another over some details of how to get the university on the right fiscal path. Whom do we trust?

Arnold is a financial expert who oversaw the state budget years ago for the governor’s office. Robbins has regularly prevaricated about all manner of UA finances.

His time in the front row at McKale Center needs to end.