College trustee's Lone Ranger position leads to full disclosure, changes in athletic program
School officials are predicting unprecedented, record-breaking seasons for Northeast Texas Community College athletic programs in the upcoming fiscal year - they'll be in the black for the first time in history.
"Finally," says Camp County college trustee Chuck Johns, whose 8-year tenure on the board has been marked by administrative wriggling concerning his questions about the cost of athletic programs.
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"It's been like trying to nail Jello to the wall," Mr. Johns said. His quest has defied a "Don't ask, don't tell" mentality dating back to 1992. That's when former NTCC President Mike Bruner promised the school's new baseball program would be self supporting.
President Bruner left the college following an investigation of financial improprieties and was replaced by current President Charles Florio, PhD., who echoed Mr. Bruner's claims about athletics.
"From the day I was elected to the board, I was told the athletic programs generated money for the school," says Mr. Johns, whose repeated requests were frustrated until June of 2001 when the board instructed Dr. Florio to produce bottom-line numbers with an independent audit.
"That fall, we got in-house figures showing a $41,000 net," Mr. Johns said. "In spite of the fact that Dr. Florio defied the instruction for an outside audit, I accepted that at face value until last year, when I read a piece about Collin County Community College dropping its baseball program because it was losing $250,000 annually. Given that we had almost identical programs, I didn't understand how there could be a nearly $300,000 difference."
Mr. Johns again began pushing for the school's independent auditor, Texarkana-based Wilf and Henderson, to address his questions. Looking at baseball, rodeo and girls' softball programs with annual expenditures of $481,000, the auditors plugged in revenue streams including tuition and fees, dorm rent, book store sales and state reimbursement based on classroom hours generated by 99 jocks. Backing out scholarship costs and plugging in other revenues down to concessions and gate receipts, auditors concluded the program had a $36,000 deficit last year.
Vice President for Administrative Services Aubrey Smart explained that players pump money into the system because scholarship funds provide the equivalent of a full ride for only 15 of the 37 members of the baseball team, for example. The rest, essentially, pay their own way to play, mirroring the way the rodeo and softball programs work.
At the August meeting where the board approved its $11.6 million budget for the upcoming year, Mr. Smart outlined an athletic department budget reducing scholarship and travel expenses. Administrators ordered conversion of dorm space that had been used for storage and staff suites to additional bed space to be rented to students, projected marginal increases in gate receipts and concession sales, plugged in numbers linked to plans to more aggressively pursue outfield wall signage ad sales and facility rentals for high school playoff games, then calculated a bottom line transforming last year's $36,000 short fall to a $47,000 profit for the upcoming year.
Thank the Camp County board rep for that action.
"If Mr. Johns hadn't pressed the issue, it probably wouldn't have been addressed," Mr. Smart said.
Speaking of standing alone, this wasn't Mr. Johns first time out of the chute.
He voted against holding a bond election proposing construction projects that would have required removing the 10-cent property tax cap promised when voters in Camp, Morris and Titus County approved creation of the college district in the 1980's. He voted against President Florio's most recent raise, which was based on an average of salaries of presidents at all of the state's community colleges.
"I thought it would be fair to base his salary on the average of the Texas community college presidents of schools of similar size," Mr. Johns said. After he opposed Dr. Florio's raise, Morris County board member Sid Greer's letter to the editor appeared in Mr. Johns' hometown paper, addressing such positions as "cheap" and "little."
His opposition to the bond issue didn't reflect opposition to expansion.
"It was a matter of principle, keeping the promise made when voters approved the college district," he said.
Such principles haven't made him most popular man on campus, but in the case of the bond election, it hit the target with voters who defeated the proposals in 16 of 17 boxes on election day. When administration re-tooled expansion plans, keeping the tax rate within bounds promised 20 years ago, Mr. Johns voted in favor of the current $9.2 million building program including a University and Health Sciences Center, a new Industrial Technology Center and a new Criminal Justice Center, all of which are being constructed on campus, and the Pittsburg Outreach Center, where construction is expected to begin this fall.
"I ran for the board because I love our college," Mr. Johns said. "I've seen first hand how education has helped break cycles of poverty. I see my responsibility as doing everything I can to keep education as affordable as possible for both students and taxpayers. That doesn't mean I've enjoyed sitting across from somebody while voting against their raise, or being the lone voice of dissent."
Revenue streams funding the $11.6 million budget include state funds, 32 percent; tuition and fees, 30 percent; local taxes, 18 percent; food sales and book store profits, 17 percent; and other sources, 3 percent.