Georgia Tech athletic director Todd Stansbury needs to find a way to cut expenses in his department. But he won’t have the assistance of a furlough program.
The department planned to make use of a furlough plan authorized in May by the University System of Georgia to help make ends meet in a budget wrecked by the coronavirus, but the system rescinded the plan in late June.
“Part of our budgeting modeling is trying to figure out, OK, we used that furlough plan that the USG had put forward to balance our budget, and so that is now an area that we’re trying to figure out how do we do that, knowing that the furlough is no longer an option,” Stansbury said on a video conference Friday.
When department chief financial officer Marvin Lewis presented the budget for fiscal-year 2021 in June, it included a furlough that would reduce by 6.2% the salaries of all staff making $154,000 or more – which includes football coach Geoff Collins, basketball coaches Josh Pastner and Nell Fortner, baseball coach Danny Hall, many assistant coaches and Stansbury, among others. It was going to help reduce Tech’s allotment for salaries from $32.5 million to $29.3 million, a 10% decrease. Those taking the steepest furlough would also have to take 16 unpaid days off.
Now, not only are Lewis and Stansbury without a furlough to trim payroll, but revenue shortages that will likely be even greater than originally projected.
The increasing likelihood that ticket revenue for home football games will be severely diminished has led Stansbury to start a campaign for season-ticket holders to exchange their ticket payments into donations in the event that there are no games to attend due to the season being canceled.
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