BOG may allow FAMU to write off athletic debt

The Florida Board of Governors (BOG), the governing body for the State University System of Florida, yesterday, noted the challenges FAMU faces in their efforts to balance its athletic budget with the cancellation of all fall sports in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference this year. 

Audit and Compliance Committee Chair, Charles Lydecker, said he intends to have another call with the FAMU staff in the coming weeks to discuss the new challenges to gain more details of the financial impact, and share those details back with the committee and the full Board, at its September meeting.  Lydecker noted that previous calls with FAMU have been very thoughtful and productive and the progress that the University has been making to clear pass debts have been satisfactory.

Norm Tripp, one of the longest serving members of the BOG, recommended that “the Board should seriously consider allowing FAMU to write off the past athletic debt. “Even in the best of times they are probably not ever going to recover from it, the money was never ever wrongly spent….it was aggressive hopefulness is what he saw from it on most of the debt (and bad budgeting).” 

“I think as we are looking through this again, we should give this some real consideration, so that we give them some avenue to reach the top of the mountain,” Tripp said.

Lyderdecker, thanked Tripp for his comments and said that he would give his comments thoughtful consideration.  

Tripp said, (the debt relief) is necessary, because even though they (FAMU) have put together a good repayment plan, the reality is that the numbers are never really probably going work.  The debt relief would allow FAMU to see light at the end of the tunnel.

FAMU is carrying roughly $9 million in athletic debt which it owes to other business units inside the university.  The debt has accumulated over a decade. 

In October, FAMU eliminated two sports -- men's tennis and cross country in an effort  to reduce the debt and in December trustees rebalanced student fees by reducing the technology fee by $3 per credit hour while simultaneously increasing the athletic fee by the same amount to raise about $440,000 for athletics, assuming the enrollment holds steady.