Northridge Must Cut Programs

Cal State Northridge administrators, citing projected financial problems, said Thursday that within the next two weeks the school will eliminate one or more men’s programs from a short list that includes soccer, baseball, volleyball, swimming and golf.

The cuts will come less than 18 months after Athletic Director Paul Bubb, clinging to a task force’s report, said that no cuts would be necessary. That report, Bubb now admits, was rife with inaccurate projections.

Bubb, speaking alongside Ron Kopita, Northridge vice president in charge of student affairs, told reporters the only way to bring Northridge into compliance with gender-equity requirements and remain within realistic budgetary constraints was to add women’s sports and eliminate one or more men’s sports.

Bubb would not say which sports are most likely to be cut, but men’s sports that are Big Sky Conference core sports can’t be eliminated. The five in jeopardy are not Big Sky members.

“There are certain factors that each program brings to the table that make them hard to drop,” Bubb said, “but there are certain factors with each that makes them realistic to be dropped.”

Northridge is also expected to add up to three women’s sports from the following group: lacrosse, rifle and water polo.

Today Bubb will submit to Kopita a list of scenarios, involving different combinations of additions and subtractions that will get Northridge to its goals. Kopita, in consultation with Blenda J. Wilson, the school president, will decide within two weeks which scenario to follow.

Kopita compared the cuts, which some may see as drastic, to pulling off a bandage.

“You can rip it right off and have a sharp pain for a short time, or you can try to ease it off and feel a slow pain,” he said. “I like to rip it off.”

Maintaining all men’s sports while adding enough women’s sports to bring Northridge in line with gender equity regulations is not an option, Bubb said, because it would be too expensive.

That is in direct contradiction to the conclusion a task force report reached in January, 1996.

Bubb said the committee made faulty conclusions because it underestimated costs and overestimated income, resulting in Northridge running an $800,000 deficit this year.

The discrepancies:

* The Northridge Corporation, the school’s fund-raising arm, was expected to increase its contribution from $280,000 to $500,000, but it remained at $280,000. The reasons the expectation was not met are unclear.

Don Queen, executive director of the Corporation, said $560,000 was actually paid to the athletic department, but that was for two years because nothing was paid for 1995-96. The full $500,000 has already been allocated for the athletic department’s 1997-98 budget, Queen said.

* Projections for athletic department’s own fund-raising came up about $100,000 short. Bubb said the shortfall was because the school still has not hired an administrator in charge of fund-raising--the job he vacated to become athletic director.

“We hoped somewhere within the office, we would all pick up the slack,” he said.

* Travel costs were calculated based on consultation with other Big Sky schools and with a formula the department had used in the past. But those estimates were about $170,000 too low.

“I’ll have to take responsibility for that,” Bubb said. “I trusted some figures I should have scrutinized closer than I did.

* The cost of game officials was about $60,000 more than was anticipated.

* The committee also failed to take into account about $150,000 worth of debt that carried over from the 1995-96 school year.

William Watkins, Northridge assistant vice president of student life, who chaired the task force, said he was aware at the time that he was dealing with a large number of unknown factors.

“The advisory board knew that it would take a phenomenal effort for everything to come together from the revenue side to cover the costs,” Watkins said.