Miller’s 4-Year Plan: Eliminate $348,000 Athletic Department Deficit

San Diego State Athletic Director Fred Miller announced a plan Thursday to eliminate the department’s $348,000 deficit over the next four years.

Miller’s plan would require the department to apply part of its budget each year to deficit reduction and the creation of a cash reserve.

The plan will go into effect immediately and will apply to the 1987-88 fiscal year, which began July 1, Miller said. That will force a reallocation of $135,000 from athletic programs and administration to the new deficit-reduction program. The figure represents about 3.4% of the department’s $4 million budget.

Miller declined to discuss specific program cuts but said they ranged between .63% and 4.9%. He did say that football, which has the department’s largest budget at $1.02 million, will receive the biggest cut, but he would not place a dollar or percentage figure on the reduction. Ernie Riggins, the women’s basketball coach, said his $88,000 budget was cut by about $5,000. He said most of the reduction will be made in travel and recruiting expenses.

“Maybe we’ll take a few less players on the road, or maybe we’ll take a bus to some games instead of flying,” Riggins said. “But the cuts were across the board and fair. Fred has made believers of the whole coaching staff. We realize sometimes we have to take a step or two back to take five or six forward.”

Jim Brandenburg, the men’s basketball coach, and Chuck Clegg, the soccer coach, could not provide specific figures on their budget reductions but both said they were manageable.

Miller said he has been concerned for some time about reducing the deficit. He said he decided to adjust the 1987-88 budget after it had gone into effect when W. Ann Reynolds, chancellor of the California State University system, sent a study to the university presidents late last month calling for fiscal responsibility in their athletic departments.

The report made no specific recommendations about eliminating the San Diego State deficit.

The department has run in the black in Miller’s first two years as athletic director and reduced the deficit in each of those years. Last year, the deficit was reduced by $210,810, in part from revenues received from the Aztecs’ appearance in the Holiday Bowl. But Miller said he no longer wanted to rely on such unanticipated revenues to reduce the deficit. Under the new plan, bowl and other unanticipated revenues would be used for scholarship and capital improvement programs.

Miller said he also thought that by demonstrating a willingness to eliminate the deficit through cuts, the athletic department’s fund-raising position would be improved in the community.

“I was so tired of hearing about the deficit wherever I went,” Miller said. “You can’t expect people to give you money to pay off debts.”