Last updated on 01/13/2021
$3.5M in salary plus bonuses for 2021-2.
Talk about bad timing. UO’s lobbyists are at work in Salem, trying to get UO a bigger share of the state budget. If they fail, UO will have to cut staff, limit hiring, and/or raise in-state tuition.
The legislature is already asking why a university with such an expensive athletics program can’t pay the academic side’s costs without a bigger state subsidy or raising tuition. This news is not going to help:
The University of Oregon has agreed to terms with head coach Dana Altman on a contract extension, athletic director Rob Mullens announced on Thursday:
According to the school, Altman and Oregon are finalizing a deal that would run through the 2025-26 season.
“Dana and Reva Altman are an important part of our community, and we are thrilled at the opportunity to continue to build on the tremendous success we have had over Dana’s nine years as the head coach at Oregon,” Mullens said. “We are thankful for Dana’s commitment to the Ducks, and we look forward to the continued strong performance of our men’s basketball program as well as Dana assuming his rightful place in the Hall of Fame in the future.”
“Important part of our community?”
I assume Mullens means the community of greedy Duck coaches. Mullens, Cristobal, Altman and the other coaches, with a total payroll of ~$23M, gave a total of $50 to the Oregon Community Fund Drive last year:
A contract extension for Dana certainly explains why President Schill needs to keep Sexual Assault Prevention and the UOPD fully funded.
Are the legislators incapable of understanding that less of Uncle Phil’s money for athletics will not mean more for academics? Are they incapable of understanding that spiting UO academics to make a point about athletics will just result in higher tuition for Oregon students?
Yes, I am perfectly able to believe this.
Legislators listen to constituents, and constituents don’t understand why we pay millions for coaches to leave [or to stay]. If we can’t sell Oregonians on the college athletics scam, why should legislators go along?
Why should legislators go along? Because if they don’t figure it out, tuition is going to go up on Oregon students. Or else academic programs are going to be cut, a lot. Maybe UO is incapable of explaining that, or maybe the legislators are incapable of understanding. But that is what is going to happen.
Given this here site is about U of Owe, fact is, all states have been cutting public university budgets. Why does anyone think Oregon is iconoclastic enough to buck that trend?
I think the state of Oregon cut the Universities faster and earlier than other states especially, in response to Measure 5 of 1990. While other states were increasing budgets through the 90’s and 00’s Oregon was already cutting state budgets, so much at one point they were lauded for being the most efficient with state money. Then while other state were dropping funding, we seemed to go the other way, https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/2016/01/in-surprising-turn-oregon-ranks-no-1-in-higher-ed.html
However, that may have just been the one time shiny buy off to kill off the old system overlords… But yes, many other states have not caught up with Oregon and instead of being dead last, (or just above Mississippi), we may be in the middle of the pack for sate funding.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/22/state-support-higher-ed-grows-16-percent-2018
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
Sorry but the world has bigger damn problems to deal with like what happened in New Zealand or Syria. That’s what I’m focused on. Beto or Bernie. Support them both!
Support them both? They cancel each other out.
I am going to have to change my name to old timer… I remember, a dozen or more years ago, when UO B-Ball was fun with the Pit crew bouncing the rafters, hanging on to be a giant slayer, going to the dance…. Ah, nostalgia.
Can we ever go back?
THe bigger problem.
If college is not affordable, Oregonians will graduate with extra debt. Then they are less likely to stay in OR where housing costs are high and job options are ok, but not great for college grads. Its why we have such a high brain drain in the state.
We need for college to be affordable, and for housing to be affordable which means more of it!!! Not rent control. Just build more freaking houses (and build the infrastructure to make it easier to build).
The housing part is a little (actually, a lot) more complicated than you say. Infrastructure costs a lot of money; Oregonians don’t want to pay the taxes to build it, so we have high systems development charges (SDCs) tacked on to the cost of each unit – but these don’t cover the full cost, even while they make housing more expensive. Contrary to popular belief, new housing units are a net loss to municipal budgets – the residents of a house require more services than are covered by their taxes, whereas commercial development pays more in taxes than it requires in services. So the more houses you build, the deeper the hole; this is what led to Measure 5.
We’re building a lot of one kind of housing – big houses on the edge of metro areas – that don’t meet the needs (or incomes) of the people who need housing. But we live in a market economy, and given the current set of conditions, this is where the builders can make the most money. The other thing that people forget about a market economy is that you can cut costs, but it doesn’t mean prices will go down – developers will just make more profits. Housing prices rise when people want to live in a place, and new construction is more expensive than existing housing, so it is very hard to build your way to affordability.
We do have a local coalition, Better Housing Together (https://www.betterhousingtogether.org), that has brought together over 45 local organizations (including the UO), to try to solve this problem. There isn’t one simple answer, but there may be a series of complex answers that can attack the very different problems affecting the different components of the crisis.