Governor Christie Article Re. Rutgers Sports

[HeavenUniv.]

I don't know if he is giving us the green light or not---

http://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketball/index.ssf/2015/03/gov_christie_says_its_on_rutgers_to_be_able_to_com.html#incart_river

 

[RCTrooper]

Just a politician speaking in rhetorical terms; nothing to see here. Now if Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers were in favor of RU athletics....

 

[Vejai]

Some interesting quotes there


Officials at New Jersey's state university say approximately 32.2 percent of Rutgers' $3.67 billion operational budget is derived from state appropriations, with tuition and fees covering the other 67.8 percent of educational costs




Asked whether he sees an imbalance between the emphasis that Rutgers places on athletics and its focus on academics, Christie denied that notion.


"It's just stuff that you guys like to talk about,'' the Republican governor said. "We're spending billions of dollars across this state to expand classroom space and focused on stem education, and we're not spending anywhere near a billion dollars on sports programs for our public universities across the state.

 

[WhiteBus]

He's not "giving" approval. He is saying they can do what they want but don't expect any money from the state.

 

[knightfan7]

Originally posted by WhiteBus:
He's not "giving" approval. He is saying they can do what they want but don't expect any money from the state.

I don't think anyone should have expected help from the state. I'll be happy if they just stay neutral.

I took it as he understands there are things the need to do IF they want to compete. He's in a round about way saying %$#@ or get off the pot.

 

[Upstream]

Originally posted by WhiteBus:
He's not "giving" approval. He is saying they can do what they want but don't expect any money from the state.

Which, really, is what we should all want (as long as that also means that Rutgers won't get any interference from the state).

 

[Beancounter88]

Would he change his tune if there was a fat sandwich named after him?

 

[Caliknight]

Originally posted by RCTrooper:
Just a politician speaking in rhetorical terms; nothing to see here. Now if Sheldon Adelson or the Koch Brothers were in favor of RU athletics....

Maybe we should hit up George Soros?

 

[RBS05]

This is the best possible outcome. Unfortunately for Barchi and the BOG, this puts the responsibility squarely on them.

 

[WhiteBus]

Originally posted by RBS05:
This is the best possible outcome. Unfortunately for Barchi and the BOG, this puts the responsibility squarely on them.

I don't think this has ever been a problem for Rutgers. No Gov has ever interfered in a negative way with RU sports that I can recall. They may not have supported it but no one has told RU not to do anything bad for RU sports.

 

[knightfan7]

Originally posted by RBS05:
This is the best possible outcome. Unfortunately for Barchi and the BOG, this puts the responsibility squarely on them.

Where it should be. To bad they have no backbones.

 

[mdk01]

Originally posted by Beancounter88:
Would he change his tune if there was a fat sandwich named after him?

Or, based on recent pictures, maybe RU should go after donations from foreign governments and launch a "Fat Hillary"

 

[RBS05]

Originally posted by WhiteBus:

Originally posted by RBS05:
This is the best possible outcome. Unfortunately for Barchi and the BOG, this puts the responsibility squarely on them.

I don't think this has ever been a problem for Rutgers. No Gov has ever interfered in a negative way with RU sports that I can recall. They may not have supported it but no one has told RU not to do anything bad for RU sports.

While I agree with you, hasn't it seemed from reading posts around here it that there is some sort of implicit fear that the state will crack down on any ways we come up with to invest in ourselves? This makes it clear to the media - who would otherwise be able to roll out the usual crap about "taxpayer money funding athletics" - that the state would have no issue with us borrowing against future revenues to build today. It's our money, not the state's, and Barchi and the BOG are in full control.

 

[ClassOf02]

Originally posted by Vejai:
Some interesting quotes there


Officials at New Jersey's state university say approximately 32.2 percent of Rutgers' $3.67 billion operational budget is derived from state appropriations, with tuition and fees covering the other 67.8 percent of educational costs

This number is higher than what we typically hear thrown around (19-20%). What's true?

 

[derleider]

Originally posted by ClassOf02:

Originally posted by Vejai:
Some interesting quotes there


Officials at New Jersey's state university say approximately 32.2 percent of Rutgers' $3.67 billion operational budget is derived from state appropriations, with tuition and fees covering the other 67.8 percent of educational costs

This number is higher than what we typically hear thrown around (19-20%). What's true?

It might include employee benefits, which are an obligation of the state to its employees, not of RU to the employees.

As for the politics. I dont think its the gov, so much as the voting public and opportunistic legislators looking to make hay on the issue.

And even then, if RU students and alumni were truly committed to athletics at all cost, like they are in the South, I think they would ignore the politicians. But what is the most likely outcome of borrowing lots of money to build a new practice facility - the best case scenario is student and alumni apathy. The worst case is protests and bad publicity for RU as an academic institution, who is spending on sports at the same time that it has to make budget cuts elsewhere due to continuously falling state contributions.

The least liklely thing to happen isthat masses of RU students rally around the president's attempts to improve sports through borrowing.

I dont think Christie's article changes anything. RU will build the facility either when it has revenues coming in from the Big Ten to pay for it, or when it has donations coming in to pay from it. Christie or not, RU likely isnt going to take out a bond who's primary purpose is to build non-revenue generating sports facilities. Not when it has so many other priorities for that money..

 

[JPhoboken]

Originally posted by WhiteBus:
He's not "giving" approval. He is saying they can do what they want but don't expect any money from the state.

I agree with this, but it would sure be nice if the Governor of the state could at least come out and say the state should get behind Rutgers and even though the state is not in a position to help financially right now, he is proud Rutgers is in the BIG, and supports their effort to compete academically and athletically.

I was almost like he was distancing himself from the University. Don't see why he needs to do this.

 

[198hamilton]

I was hoping to hear him say he would "go through his rolodex" to come up with some money. Oh wait, nevermind.

 

[Upstream]

Originally posted by ClassOf02:

Originally posted by Vejai:
Some interesting quotes there


Officials at New Jersey's state university say approximately 32.2 percent of Rutgers' $3.67 billion operational budget is derived from state appropriations, with tuition and fees covering the other 67.8 percent of educational costs

This number is higher than what we typically hear thrown around (19-20%). What's true?

Both are true.

Rutgers' budget includes multiple types of state funding: State Appropriations, Fringe Benefits, and Restricted Research Funding.

Rutgers breaks their revenue sources into several buckets: (1) Educational & General Revenue which includes things like state appropriations and tuition, (2) Grants & Contracts which is restricted revenue mostly to support specific research projects, (3) Healthcare & Professional Services which is med school revenue specific to providing healthcare (e.g., if you see a doctor at Rutgers med school, the fee you pay the doctor gets booked here), and (4) Auxiliary Enterprises like dorms or dining halls.


State Appropriations and Fringe Benefits make up 32.7% of the Educational & General Revenue bucket. But since the state funding of Fringe Benefits is restricted to paying for fringe benefits, it is not money that can be used for things like building athletic facilities or paying coaching salaries. Only the State Appropriations could be allocated for those costs. State Appropriations represent 19.5% of the Educational & General Revenue bucket.

You could also look at State funding across the full Rutgers revenue budget, including restricted funding. All state funding (including research grants) represents 23.1% of Rutgers' budget. State Appropriations (the only unrestricted state funding) represents 11.0% of the total budget, and State Appropriations + Fringe Benefits represents 18.4%.

 

[ClassOf02]

Thanks Upstream -- great info.

No idea why the contact at RU that reported 32.2% (presumably some type of media relations person) would use that number instead of a lower one to make a point...but hey, it's Rutgers.

 

[derleider]

Originally posted by ClassOf02:
Thanks Upstream -- great info.

No idea why the contact at RU that reported 32.2% (presumably some type of media relations person) would use that number instead of a lower one to make a point...but hey, it's Rutgers.

Its the simpler number - there are two factors - state and non-state. The others you have multiple categories - which makes for a harder sound bite.

Think of it this way - do you really know whether 33% is high or low in this context (compared to other states or schools in NJ), assuming you didnt already have knowledge of the 20%. Sure 20% sounds better, but not if you have to qualify it with three other things. 33% state funding for a state university sounds sufficiently low to the intended audience.

It also happens that 33% and 67% is more or less the exact reverse of the situation back in the early 90s.

 

[Upstream]

Originally posted by ClassOf02:
Thanks Upstream -- great info.

No idea why the contact at RU that reported 32.2% (presumably some type of media relations person) would use that number instead of a lower one to make a point...but hey, it's Rutgers.

There was no contact at Rutgers who reported that number.

The SL went to the same Rutgers financial info webpage that I did, and did their own calculation. But being the SL, and being incredibly bad at math, they did the calculation wrong and ended up with 32.2% instead of the correct 32.7% (my guess is they re-rounded the data, and then did the calculation on re-rounded data).

 

[Upstream]

Originally posted by derleider:

Its the simpler number - there are two factors - state and non-state. The others you have multiple categories - which makes for a harder sound bite.

Think of it this way - do you really know whether 33% is high or low in this context (compared to other states or schools in NJ), assuming you didnt already have knowledge of the 20%. Sure 20% sounds better, but not if you have to qualify it with three other things. 33% state funding for a state university sounds sufficiently low to the intended audience.

It also happens that 33% and 67% is more or less the exact reverse of the situation back in the early 90s.

But it is not the simpler number. And you don't just have State and Non-state in the Educational and General Revenue category (to any greater extent than any other category can't be divided into State and Non-State).


The simpler number to use is the portion of State Funding (including restricted state funding) versus the total Rutgers Budget. The State contributes 23.1% of the University's total budget.

The only reasons that I can see for the SL to not use the simple 23.1% number is either (a) they were trying to be more precise and not look at restricted funds, or (b) they thought the 23.1% number looked too small so they tried to find a way to claim a larger number.

But if their reason to not use the 23.1% number was reason (a), then they did the calculation wrong since they included restricted fringe benefit funding. The more precise number which excludes restricted funding is 19.5%. Since that is a pretty fundamental mistake to make, I have to assume that their reason to not use the 23.1% number is they thought it looked to small. So they used the fairly meaningless 32.x% (which they miscalculated), to show the largest number they could possibly show.

 

[NotInRHouse]

He needed that $24M to not have Booker run the same day as him, not for arena.

That and Xanadu.