The Intercollegiate Athletic fee has been in place since the program was reinstated in 1991.  The fee is used by the department of Intercollegiate Athletics to provide coaches and staff salaries, equipment, travel to games and recruiting, insurance and administration for men’s and women’s basketball, baseball, women’s soccer, cross country/track and women’s volleyball.

The fee is unique in design because it funds all of the program’s expenses with the exception of $37,110 that is currently paid by the university.  The program also relies on fund raising. 

At this time, Intercollegiate Athletics is focused on the reorganization of the department, a space study to best utilize the Sports Complex and develop a master plan of how Athletics and Recreational Sports can work more efficiently and economically. 

The current fee charged to students who are full-time is $80 per semester (fall/spring); part-time students are charged $35 per semester (fall/spring).  The proposal recommendation is to increase the current fee to $100 per semester for full-time students and $40 per semester for part-time students.

BUDGET:

The fee increase would support the following for the intercollegiate athletics program.  The budget is based on conservative fall/spring enrollment.

1. Costs of essential line items to the operations budget have increased in the past few years to support raising the student fee.  Namely, a dramatic increase in the department’s transportation costs occurred in Fall/Spring 06-07.  The cost of transportation is expected to continue to increase the following year.  Other expenses that have negatively affected the operating budget include the baseball field and game day security:

Transportation:                                    $24,000

Baseball field rental/maintenance:        $8,000

Game day security:                              $3,700

                  Total                                                   $35,700

2. Post season appearances and the expenses associated with those contests represent a financial threat to the department.  Post season play usually involves travel out-of-state.  This increase is in line with other enhanced costs relative to travel and transportation as well as historical costs incurred by Loyola teams appearing in post season play:

GCAC basketball tournament (men & women)                      $4,000

Women’s basketball national tournament                                $6,000

Men’s basketball national tournament                         $6,000

Volleyball conference, regional, and national tournament       $12,000

Baseball conference, regional tournament                               $6,000

Cross country conference, regional, national meets                 $6,000

Total                                                                                       $40,000

3. Assistant coaches are necessary to aid in the administration, recruitment and retention of student-athletes in the scholarship programs (men’s and women’s basketball).  Currently, the university is funding 19 scholarships for student athletes in these two programs.  To effectively run a scholarship program, at least one assistant coach per sport is essential to aid in the running of the respective programs.                                                                          $25,000 per sport/$50,000

4. The intercollegiate athletic staff (six full time) (1 part-time) is due a merit increase.  The increase in fee would support the university’s merit increase up to 5% (depending on and in keeping with the university’s merit increase) and could be given FY 07-08.                                                                          $15,900

5. The athletic training room and locker rooms are in need of a major capital outlay plan to better serve the needs of Loyola student-athletes.  Until a space study is performed, this capital outlay will be postponed.  However, our immediate needs for improving the standard of care for our student athletes in the training room are as follows:

Four new training tables                                                          $2,000

Storage cabinets                                                                      $500