MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In conjunction with Friday’s announcement from West Virginia University that approximately 875 staff members are being furloughed for up to two months, WVU Director of Athletics Shane Lyons outlined several cuts to the athletics department for the next fiscal year.
Lyons and four head coaches will voluntarily take a ten percent salary reduction beginning on July 1. Those coaches are Neal Brown (football), Bob Huggins (men’s basketball), Mike Carey (women’s basketball) and Randy Mazey (baseball).
Lyons added that athletics department staff members making more than $100,000 will receive a 5% reduction in salary, and those making less than $100,000 with receive a 2.5% reduction.
Sixty-five employees within the athletics department will be furloughed for 60 days. Those moves will go into effect on May 24 and run through July 26. Around one-third of the department workforce will be affected.
Additionally, some employees will not return to the department and six current job openings will not be filled.
“Today is a tough day,” Lyons said. “It is always tough to share bad news with good people. The past few months have been the most uncertain times any of us have ever experienced. It is impossible to project what the next few months will bring.
“Salary reductions and furloughs are never easy. But with a projected five million dollar shortfall, they were absolutely necessary. Roughly a third of our budget is salaries. And that was a place we needed to start first.”
Cancellation of Big 12 and NCAA Basketball tournaments, losses in conference revenue and losses in donations via the Mountaineer Athletic Club have left the athletics department with a $5 million shortfall.
Lyons says that salary reductions will result in an overall savings of $3 million. Lyons says his department is exploring many avenues to make up for the remaining $2 million in the shortfall.
“I will use some of our olympic sports as an example. We have gone back to look at scheduling and taken a look at non-conference. What can we do in terms of bus trips as opposed to flying on planes? What is some more regional type of competition we can get?”
Lyons added that new streams of revenue will continue to be pursued, including naming rights for the Coliseum and Monongalia County Ballpark.
“Obviously the biggest revenue streams are with our donors and with our ticket revenue. But we also have to think outside the box.”
Ongoing renovation projects at the Milan Puskar Stadium, the Coliseum and the new olympic sports training center will continue because outside donations for those projects were specifically targeted to those facilities.
“Those are gifted funds and future bond funds that we will work through. We are not stopping construction from there.
“Those monies have been earmarked specifically for those projects and they have nothing to do with our fiscal year budgets.”
Lyons echoed the sentiments from Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby on Thursday saying the prospects of an on time start to the 2020 football season are positive, with a projected six-week ramp up period for student-athletes starting in July.
“I still remain optimistic that we will play football in the fall, along with our other fall sports. The university, along with the athletic department has various teams put together for return-to-campus, return-to-play and what that is going to look like.”