University of North Carolina Full-Time Staff Facing Furloughs or Salary Cuts

Photo Courtesy: North Carolina Athletics

All full-time staff members in the athletic department at the University of North Carolina will either be furloughed or will see a reduction in salary beginning October 1, according to a report from the Daily Tar Heel.

Coaches and staff members making $200,000 or more a year will have their salaries reduced by 20 percent. Those who make between $100,000 and $200,000 will see a 10 percent reduction in their salaries and full-time staff members with a yearly salary of less than $100,000 will be furloughed for 15 days. These reductions will remain in effect until June 30, 2021, the UNC student-led paper reported.

“This was not an easy decision,” Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham wrote in an open letter. “Our coaches and staff work diligently each day to ensure that our student-athletes have the best experience possible, and their dedication makes Carolina a truly special place. This was also a necessary decision, because we must do everything we can to provide as many opportunities as possible for student-athletes in the future.”

The University of North Carolina athletic department is expected to lose between $30 million and $52 million of its $110 million pre-pandemic projected revenue from ticket sales, sponsorship and television money, conference distributions, concession sales and a lack of fans in attendance at home events. Losing the opportunity to participate in the men’s basketball tournament last March was a big blow, as was limiting the number of spectators at home football games and reducing the schedule to conference-only opponents and one non-conference opponent.

North Carolina is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference which will be participating in fall sports this year, unlike schools in the Big Ten and Pac-12 Conferences as the ACC will be playing football starting next week.

Six Division I swim teams have been cut this off-season due to the financial fallout from the COVID pandemic, but North Carolina is doing everything it can to avoid cutting any sports. Decisions such as cutting its sport budget by 10% for the upcoming school year, halting non-essential travel and leaving 17 open full-time positions unfulfilled have been made to keep all of its undergrad teams intact.

The Tar Heel swimmers are coached by Mark Gangloff and Dr. Jack Brown as they qualified eight women and two men to the 2020 NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships, returning all but one of those qualifiers this year.

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Christin Bolte-Benton

3 years ago

Stephen Bolte

Andy Gallion

3 years ago

When bigtime P5 programs take it in the shorts like this, just think of what is going to happen to everyone else

Holly Spellman

3 years ago

Emma Burke

Bob Jennings

3 years ago

There has got to be more to come… And more dominoes to fall in other programs

Dave Bradshaw

3 years ago

Wrong!

Mark Ziegert

3 years ago

I think any collage coach would take pay it’s and operating cost reductions verse cutting there program.

#savehawkeyesports

Robert Hayon

3 years ago

Maybe they are giving the football coaches raises like at Iowa. ?‍♂️

Greg Simmon

3 years ago

Reply to Robert Hayon

ALL coaches are taking cuts, not just swimming.

Laura Motisi

3 years ago

Sorry for the coaching staff but also feeling so badly for the student/athlete who dedicated so much time to their sport in the hopes of the college experience to find that great academic and sport balance and then it’s gone … it’s ashame … first hand experience here when my son’s university cut their men’s and women’s swimming and diving program in June this year ?

David Fierke

3 years ago

Thankfully they kept the program.

Gregory J Zann

3 years ago

It’s too bad that schools with strong endowments can’t better support athletic departments through Covid. I hope that coaches and staff are treated in same manner as professors and educational instructors/staff.