Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams reports that the Texas Tech athletic department announced that they would be eliminating 40 positions in the athletic department and salary reductions for any employee making am minimum $30,000 per year.
The eliminated positions will be effective on Sept. 30. Employees were made aware Monday, and the moves were announced Monday night.
“Today was an extremely difficult and challenging day for Texas Tech athletics,” athletics director Kirby Hocutt said in the announcement. “COVID-19 has had a major financial impact on our athletics department, and it was necessary to make these very difficult decisions. We will continue to support our student-athletes and each other as we move forward.”
Of the 40 positions being eliminated, 20 are vacant positions that will not be filled. Salary reductions will be between 3% to 14% based on compensation level (assuming that the lower percent applies to the employees making less money and the higher percent to the higher earning employees). These budget reductions do not affect hourly employees making $30,000 or less.
Additionally, the Texas Tech athletic department has said that there is expected to be a $25 million shortfall with the reduction in positions expected to save $4.49 million over the next 12 months.
There’s a lot about college athletics finances that I can say that I don’t understand, partly because how college athletic departments prepare their books vary from athletic department to athletic department. I think we all knew that there would be a budget shortfall this year and I don’t know how much much of this makes sense, but I’m presuming that significant thought went into how these items were determined. As far as the positions eliminated, I’m not sure I understand the difference in eliminating 20 vacant positions, that doesn’t seem like something that is truly eliminated, but I suppose that if that’s in your budget, then that makes sense.
To the employees who have lost their jobs, I’m sorry and hope you land on your feet quickly.