Governor Mitch Daniels' proposed budget could have an impact on the budgets of every college and department at the university, including the Athletics Department.
Associate athletic director Joe Hernandez said during the March coaches' meeting, athletic director Tom Collins told the coaches to be ready for a possible 5 percent cut in every sport's budget if the budget is approved.
Despite the possible setback, Hernandez said the department's first priority is not affecting the student-athletes as much as possible.
"I think you have to look at every form of expense. That you have to figure out what the best place is to cut without effecting our student-athletes," Hernandez said. "Whether that means it's a supply and expense reduction, whether or not we have to make a few changes in how or where we can travel for a year. It could even be simple things like uniforms."
Softball coach Craig Nicholson said his team would have to look at the uniforms and apparel first and the possibility of traveling in vans instead of charter buses for some in-state games. The team did use vans to travel to a game against IPFW this season.
For team's like Nicholson's softball team, there is some fat that can be trimmed but for other teams, they have nothing left to cut.
"I think out Olympic sports will have to pay closer attention because their budgets aren't as large," Hernandez said.
Laura Seibold-Caudill, co-head coach of both the men's and women's swimming and diving teams, said her team has room to cut in their budget. Seibold-Caudill said she and co-head coach Bob Thomas will be forced to do more fund raisers to raise the money they will lose with the cut. The only place the team could possibly cut would be the bi-annual team training trip to Florida over Winter Break. The team fund raises and saves for two years to go on the trip.
Ball State doesn't have the biggest sports budget in the Mid-American Conference, Hernandez said.
"I think it obviously affects all our sports because we don't have the largest budgets in the conference," Hernandez said. "Everybody will feel the pinch somewhere. A lot just depends on how those coaches can decide with Tom Collins where they can cut because, again, they don't control all the expenses."
Hernandez said some of the expenses that teams cannot control are paying for officials and traveling to MAC opponents. They can control out of conference schedules, but even then, some teams like softball and baseball have to travel south for the beginning of their seasons in February because of Muncie weather.
The teams would not be the only area the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics is looking to for ways to tighten the belt, Hernandez said.
"In addition to looking at budget cuts from our coaches, we are looking at budget cuts from an administrative side," Hernandez said. "The cost of printing posters and media guides and game programs, it's like everything else, it's going up tremendously. Supply expense is a big part of our expense. We may need to buy less of certain supplies or make certain supplies last longer. Those are things that we have to do, but the administrative budget will take a cut just like the coaches budget."
Other teams, like the swimming and diving teams, will be looking for ways to raise the money they could lose. One easy way to raise funds would be to raise ticket prices, but Hernandez said that will not be the case.
"We're a conservative institution," Hernandez said. "I don't think we need to worry about football tickets going from $10 to $25. Traditionally, they go up every year because of inflation and because of the cost, but I don't think it would be anything drastic like that that we would do."
Hernandez said it is more important for the Athletics Department to focus on filling more seats, not raising the cost. He said the marketing department has been working to make this happen. The department is trying to capitalize on things such as both the football and men's basketball teams winning the MAC West last year and the women's basketball team winning the MAC tourney and defeating the reigning national champion University of Tennessee team in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
"You have to capitalize on those good seasons," Hernandez said. "We have to get the word out and get the word out early."
Regardless of the outcome of the budget and the affects it will have on Ball State, it should not have a noticeable impact on the Athletics Department if the head coaches of Ball State's teams along with the Athletics Department continue to find ways to stay within their budgets.
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