Committee to Study CSUN Funding Options : Budget: Three administrators with no ties to athletics will complete list of scenarios.

Cal State Northridge officials, seeking a detached perspective, have established a committee to address the school’s looming athletic funding problems.

The committee, three school administrators with no ties to athletics, hopes this month to complete a manageable list of funding scenarios to be presented to the campus community.

The committee includes Mary Ann Cummins Prager, who is an administrator in student services, Ronald Clouse, a school budget officer, and Erik Blaine, a campus housing director.

“I’ve got their feet to the fire,” said the school’s dean of students, Ron Kopita, who selected the committee members.

The committee will be responsible for paring down a lengthy list of funding options, which will be presented to President Blenda J. Wilson.

Northridge athletics, facing a budget shortfall for 1995-96, could lose programs depending on the severity of the cuts.

Feedback from the campus community, submitted to Kopita and Wilson through letters and electronic mail, has been supportive of athletics, Kopita said. However, the feedback has been split 50-50 on whether to keep the school’s Division I-AA football program, he said.

Kopita said a decision on Northridge’s athletic future could come before the fall semester ends Dec. 16.

“Thank God for computers,” Cummins Prager said. “We can plug in the numbers and go from there.”

The committee will outline the possible “configuration of programs” in terms of benefits and costs, she said.

However, Cummins Prager said the committee has not been given a target budget figure, complicating the analysis.

Kopita said the group will address cuts as they relate to maintaining NCAA Division I membership and Cal State University gender-equity provisions, set to take effect in two years.