As reported Wednesday, Wright State University’s Board of Trustees voted yesterday, Thursday, June 8th, on the proposed budget cuts for 2018.
While the majority of the proposed cuts went through, including a total of 30.8 million cut from the budget, the swim teams were spared – for the time being – with ‘passionate pushes’ from parents and alumni.
It was reported May 19th that both the men’s and women’s swimming & diving teams would be on the chopping block as part of Wright State‘s mass cuts for the 2018 fiscal year, and it was met with lots of resistance from the swim community. It all culminated Thursday, where many stepped up and gave the board several reasons why there’s no sense in cutting the programs.
“It is shameful for these students to sit here and see that you did not vet your budget,” stated one swim parent. Another parent pleaded, “Please leave the kids alone”. A current WSU student added, “It seems continually we are cutting the low-hanging fruit”.
Former swim team member and 2006-07 graduate Rafael Candido spoke before the board, and gave the message to the trustees that they have lots of support and the fight is far from over.
“It’s not over yet. Far from over. We still have a lot of work to do,” said Candido.
There was a last minute motion to save the teams, and the Board went onto vote that the President of the university would work with the Athletics Director to determine if the swim teams can be saved while staying within their 11.6 million budget for athletics. It’s estimated cutting the swim teams would cost the university $200,000.
The deadline to save the swim & dive teams is June 30th.
Along with the 30.8 million dollar cut, 57 jobs were cut as opposed to the initial estimate of 71, and 119 currently vacant positions were eliminated.
Administrative support, student worker positions and hours, stipends, overtime, travel, outside advertising, and foreign language classes like Japanese, Italian, and Russian, were all cut under the new budget.