Talking State funding and decaying URI Sports Infrastructure with James Bessette of the Providence Business News

[sbrand]

Hey Everyone,

I have James Bessettte of the Providence Business News coming on my podcast to talk about the funding URI just received to use to update, fix, etc their dilapidated sports facilities. He has been covering this issue very closely. Do you have any questions for him?

Thanks as Always.

[RF1]

How does the money for future years work beyond the next fiscal budget? Is this guaranteed without the General Assembly taking another vote?

How does the URI 20% fundraising requirement work and what conditions (release and timing) are tied to it?

Does he have a breakdown of the specific URI athletic venues the state is funding and how much for each?

[RhowdyRam02]

So construction on Meade sounds like it will start in November or December of 2024 and it sounds like it could take a couple of years from that point, is that accurate?

What is the timeline for the remaining facilities to be started and their completion dates?

[sbrand]

Hey Guys. The video is out and all the questions you asked are in the video's comment section. Check it out.

[Obadiah]

You need to take holistic view of URI finances to understand how URI athletic facilities across so many programs are in such a sorry state. This situation is due to the overall poor funding of higher education that the State has provided over decades. This is particularly true of the annual state appropriation and in FY24 the annual appropriation will increase by 16%, the first significant increase in years. Are things about to change?

When you run a University and are strapped for general funds, the natural tendency is allocate your scarce resources to the academic side and try to rely on donations on the athletics side. You can only do that for brief periods before athletics is hurt. On the investment side, the electorate is favorable to approving academic buildings especially tied to job creation, but this route is not possible with building athletic facilities, so disinvestment in athletics was a natural outcome. Somehow the State must come up with a way to build new athletic facilities outside the bond route. But athletic facilities have to be maintained and staffed properly and that is where the annual appropriation is important. We need a better approach on both factors!

[sbrand]

Phenomenal reply. You should share this on another forum like Reddits College Football thread or comment in the YouTube section. Most people have such a simplistic view of athletic funding.

[Blue Man]

You need to take holistic view of URI finances to understand how URI athletic facilities across so many programs are in such a sorry state. This situation is due to the overall poor funding of higher education that the State has provided over decades. This is particularly true of the annual state appropriation and in FY24 the annual appropriation will increase by 16%, the first significant increase in years. Are things about to change?

When you run a University and are strapped for general funds, the natural tendency is allocate your scarce resources to the academic side and try to rely on donations on the athletics side. You can only do that for brief periods before athletics is hurt. On the investment side, the electorate is favorable to approving academic buildings especially tied to job creation, but this route is not possible with building athletic facilities, so disinvestment in athletics was a natural outcome. Somehow the State must come up with a way to build new athletic facilities outside the bond route. But athletic facilities have to be maintained and staffed properly and that is where the annual appropriation is important. We need a better approach on both factors!

100% accurate.

The piece to add that most of the mouthbreathers who complain is how important athletics is to getting new students (from out of state that pay more), and connecting alumni back to the school to donate.

I say it a lot but I don’t think you can say it enough: you cannot understate the importance of collegiate athletics/facilities to bringing in prospective students and potential future RI residents/taxpayers.

New academic buildings are cool, but how do people see them? Are kids/parents looking at publications like “sick academic buildings weekly?” Or are they watching sports. Are they seeing your stadiums/crowds? Potentially your commercials during said sporting events - but the facilities that are shown on TV matter. A lot.

[Obadiah]

Here is the basic anomaly that URI faces. The State just put its FY24 budget to bed at $14 billion. The way you compare state budgets across the nation is on a per capita basis which makes budgets of large states comparable to budgets of smaller states. How does spending in Rhode Island compare on this basis? The answer is RI ranks #4, trailing Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. On a per capita basis, RI at $12,700, beats every other New England state by a wide margin.

Now you would think that a big spending state would rank high on key components in the budget. Wrong! On expenditures on higher education, Rhode Island ranks low - on the basis of spending per capita, the rank is #46, on spending per student the State is dead last, #50. More stunning is you can go back to 1990 and find the stats were similar. And it's not only higher ed that gets the shaft, but how about roads. WalletHub just issued a ranking that puts RI as having the worst roads in the country. Now that is even more stunning because of small geographic size of the state.

I recall President Dooley once told me that Montana State, where he was before he came to URI, was a smaller school than URI but had a bigger chemistry department. You see that across many disciplines at URI. So when you complain about the marketing effort in URI Athletics understand that the funding for such an effort is skimpy forcing a reliance on interns rather than professionals.

What is amazing is how well URI has done under these adverse conditions – increased enrollment by 33% since 2004 and keeping tuition flat for the last ten years - is in itself a remarkable achievement and shows that some level of excellence can be borne from adversity.

[RhowdyRam02]

You need to take holistic view of URI finances to understand how URI athletic facilities across so many programs are in such a sorry state. This situation is due to the overall poor funding of higher education that the State has provided over decades. This is particularly true of the annual state appropriation and in FY24 the annual appropriation will increase by 16%, the first significant increase in years. Are things about to change?

When you run a University and are strapped for general funds, the natural tendency is allocate your scarce resources to the academic side and try to rely on donations on the athletics side. You can only do that for brief periods before athletics is hurt. On the investment side, the electorate is favorable to approving academic buildings especially tied to job creation, but this route is not possible with building athletic facilities, so disinvestment in athletics was a natural outcome. Somehow the State must come up with a way to build new athletic facilities outside the bond route. But athletic facilities have to be maintained and staffed properly and that is where the annual appropriation is important. We need a better approach on both factors!

100% accurate.

The piece to add that most of the mouthbreathers who complain is how important athletics is to getting new students (from out of state that pay more), and connecting alumni back to the school to donate.

I say it a lot but I don’t think you can say it enough: you cannot understate the importance of collegiate athletics/facilities to bringing in prospective students and potential future RI residents/taxpayers.

New academic buildings are cool, but how do people see them? Are kids/parents looking at publications like “sick academic buildings weekly?” Or are they watching sports. Are they seeing your stadiums/crowds? Potentially your commercials during said sporting events - but the facilities that are shown on TV matter. A lot.

People see them on tours. More students are choosing to come here, or not, based on the state of our academic buildings than our athletic facilities. More potential students and parents see the new Engineering building in one big event day like a Welcome Day than some of these athletic facilities will see in a year.

It's vital that these facilities get upgraded and I'm thrilled it's happening, but there's no way they should have come before the academic buildings we fixed or built earlier. Yet another reason why Carothers was horrible. The stagnation that took place the last half of his presidency while he ran out the clock to collect a pension set this University back tremendously and it took almost all of Dooley's tenure to undo the damage

[ramster]

Here is the basic anomaly that URI faces. The State just put its FY24 budget to bed at $14 billion. The way you compare state budgets across the nation is on a per capita basis which makes budgets of large states comparable to budgets of smaller states. How does spending in Rhode Island compare on this basis? The answer is RI ranks #4, trailing Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. On a per capita basis, RI at $12,700, beats every other New England state by a wide margin.

Now you would think that a big spending state would rank high on key components in the budget. Wrong! On expenditures on higher education, Rhode Island ranks low - on the basis of spending per capita, the rank is #46, on spending per student the State is dead last, #50. More stunning is you can go back to 1990 and find the stats were similar. And it's not only higher ed that gets the shaft, but how about roads. WalletHub just issued a ranking that puts RI as having the worst roads in the country. Now that is even more stunning because of small geographic size of the state.

I recall President Dooley once told me that Montana State, where he was before he came to URI, was a smaller school than URI but had a bigger chemistry department. You see that across many disciplines at URI. So when you complain about the marketing effort in URI Athletics understand that the funding for such an effort is skimpy forcing a reliance on interns rather than professionals.

What is amazing is how well URI has done under these adverse conditions – increased enrollment by 33% since 2004 and keeping tuition flat for the last ten years - is in itself a remarkable achievement and shows that some level of excellence can be borne from adversity.

Thanks for the info Obadiah

RI #4 in spending per capita. And if exclude Hawaii and Alaska which are very expensive states only Oregon leads RI on continental US

Higher Ed spending
RI #46 per capita spend
RI #50 per student spend

Opposite ends of the spectrum with higher Ed on the short end

RI seems high in government support like unemployment, disability, social security, etc an aging population but also lots of low pay jobs and below average high paying jobs

Since money is highly spent but not on higher education where is the money going? Certainly not to roads.
Pensions? government workers? ???

How to fix this?

Can you share this with our President? If you haven't already?

How do these categories compare to other New England States?
Thanks again.

[RhowdyRam02]

We spend $17,024 per student K-12. Only Alaska, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Washington DC spend more per student. Are we getting the proper return on investment considering our fairly lofty investment?

The following places like us spend more on K-12 per student than college per student: Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington DC. Most states spend significantly more per college student than they do per K-12 student, we seem to have that reversed.

Per college student, these are the areas that spend less than our $10,393: New Hampshire and Washington DC.

Not sure how the college data was determined for Washington DC in here.

So there you go, we spend a lot on K-12 though are probably not getting the return on investment for how much we're paying and spend almost nothing compared to most states on college. You can't compete for jobs that require higher education when you don't invest in it. You want to know why our economy lags, there you go.

https://www.learner.com/blog/states-tha ... -education

Edit to add, I assume Washington DC higher education data is based on the University of the District of Columbia, a public historically black land-grant

[Obadiah]

On both factors, expenditures per capita and expenditures per student, Connecticut ranks the highest in New England. Mass is next best, then Vermont. Maine and New Hampshire also show poor ranking, but Rhode Island is last in both categories. Also must caution that simple metric of expenditures per capita must be view in a greater context. For example, states that have a high number of students in private schools tend to show lower numbers for public expenditures per capita.

[Obadiah]

We spend $17,024 per student K-12. Only Alaska, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Washington DC spend more per student. Are we getting the proper return on investment considering our fairly lofty investment?

The following places like us spend more on K-12 per student than college per student: Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington DC. Most states spend significantly more per college student than they do per K-12 student, we seem to have that reversed.

Per college student, these are the areas that spend less than our $10,393: New Hampshire and Washington DC.

Not sure how the college data was determined for Washington DC in here.

So there you go, we spend a lot on K-12 though are probably not getting the return on investment for how much we're paying and spend almost nothing compared to most states on college. You can't compete for jobs that require higher education when you don't invest in it. You want to know why our economy lags, there you go.

https://www.learner.com/blog/states-tha ... -education

Edit to add, I assume Washington DC higher education data is based on the University of the District of Columbia, a public historically black land-grant

Thanks for pointing out this other anomaly - RI ranks high on spending for K-12 and low on spending for higher ed. Some factors to consider here is that K-12 is controlled primarily by cities and town which don't have the resources the State does. Also, the spending data you used doesn't cover capital investment and when you look at school facilities, you find aging buildings everywhere which hinders the educational process. East Providence has broken out of that straitjacket with its sparkling new high school building. Others towns are taking note, Pawtucket and South Kingstown come to mind with their plans for new high school buildings.

BTW, I once asked a state legislator why the difference between the high spending on K-12 education versus low spending on higher ed. His answer: higher ed is voluntary. Huh??? I kid you not with that story.

[NYGFan_Section208]

You need to take holistic view of URI finances to understand how URI athletic facilities across so many programs are in such a sorry state. This situation is due to the overall poor funding of higher education that the State has provided over decades. This is particularly true of the annual state appropriation and in FY24 the annual appropriation will increase by 16%, the first significant increase in years. Are things about to change?

When you run a University and are strapped for general funds, the natural tendency is allocate your scarce resources to the academic side and try to rely on donations on the athletics side. You can only do that for brief periods before athletics is hurt. On the investment side, the electorate is favorable to approving academic buildings especially tied to job creation, but this route is not possible with building athletic facilities, so disinvestment in athletics was a natural outcome. Somehow the State must come up with a way to build new athletic facilities outside the bond route. But athletic facilities have to be maintained and staffed properly and that is where the annual appropriation is important. We need a better approach on both factors!

100% accurate.

The piece to add that most of the mouthbreathers who complain is how important athletics is to getting new students (from out of state that pay more), and connecting alumni back to the school to donate.

I say it a lot but I don’t think you can say it enough: you cannot understate the importance of collegiate athletics/facilities to bringing in prospective students and potential future RI residents/taxpayers.

New academic buildings are cool, but how do people see them? Are kids/parents looking at publications like “sick academic buildings weekly?” Or are they watching sports. Are they seeing your stadiums/crowds? Potentially your commercials during said sporting events - but the facilities that are shown on TV matter. A lot.

Saw it play out in my own family this weekend...my nephew and family live in Maine. Kid is a good athlete, good student, played multiple sports. Decided to go to South Carolina and the tipping point factor (over several NE schools) was the opportunity to see big time sports. Not even play...just be there for it...

[ramster]

You need to take holistic view of URI finances to understand how URI athletic facilities across so many programs are in such a sorry state. This situation is due to the overall poor funding of higher education that the State has provided over decades. This is particularly true of the annual state appropriation and in FY24 the annual appropriation will increase by 16%, the first significant increase in years. Are things about to change?

When you run a University and are strapped for general funds, the natural tendency is allocate your scarce resources to the academic side and try to rely on donations on the athletics side. You can only do that for brief periods before athletics is hurt. On the investment side, the electorate is favorable to approving academic buildings especially tied to job creation, but this route is not possible with building athletic facilities, so disinvestment in athletics was a natural outcome. Somehow the State must come up with a way to build new athletic facilities outside the bond route. But athletic facilities have to be maintained and staffed properly and that is where the annual appropriation is important. We need a better approach on both factors!

100% accurate.

The piece to add that most of the mouthbreathers who complain is how important athletics is to getting new students (from out of state that pay more), and connecting alumni back to the school to donate.

I say it a lot but I don’t think you can say it enough: you cannot understate the importance of collegiate athletics/facilities to bringing in prospective students and potential future RI residents/taxpayers.

New academic buildings are cool, but how do people see them? Are kids/parents looking at publications like “sick academic buildings weekly?” Or are they watching sports. Are they seeing your stadiums/crowds? Potentially your commercials during said sporting events - but the facilities that are shown on TV matter. A lot.

Saw it play out in my own family this weekend...my nephew and family live in Maine. Kid is a good athlete, good student, played multiple sports. Decided to go to South Carolina and the tipping point factor (over several NE schools) was the opportunity to see big time sports. Not even play...just be there for it...

University of South Carolina in Columbia? Is that where he is going?
The game day tailgating for football games is huge. Starts well before the game and goes long after.
They even tailgate in SEC and ACC for Baseball games but Football is amazing.

[ramster]

We spend $17,024 per student K-12. Only Alaska, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Washington DC spend more per student. Are we getting the proper return on investment considering our fairly lofty investment?

The following places like us spend more on K-12 per student than college per student: Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington DC. Most states spend significantly more per college student than they do per K-12 student, we seem to have that reversed.

Per college student, these are the areas that spend less than our $10,393: New Hampshire and Washington DC.

Not sure how the college data was determined for Washington DC in here.

So there you go, we spend a lot on K-12 though are probably not getting the return on investment for how much we're paying and spend almost nothing compared to most states on college. You can't compete for jobs that require higher education when you don't invest in it. You want to know why our economy lags, there you go.

https://www.learner.com/blog/states-tha ... -education

Edit to add, I assume Washington DC higher education data is based on the University of the District of Columbia, a public historically black land-grant

Thanks for pointing out this other anomaly - RI ranks high on spending for K-12 and low on spending for higher ed. Some factors to consider here is that K-12 is controlled primarily by cities and town which don't have the resources the State does. Also, the spending data you used doesn't cover capital investment and when you look at school facilities, you find aging buildings everywhere which hinders the educational process. East Providence has broken out of that straitjacket with its sparkling new high school building. Others towns are taking note, Pawtucket and South Kingstown come to mind with their plans for new high school buildings.

BTW, I once asked a state legislator why the difference between the high spending on K-12 education versus low spending on higher ed. His answer: higher ed is voluntary. Huh??? I kid you not with that story.

Unions for Teachers enable higher salaries and benefits in most Northern states and California. Tougher to get teaching jobs there where Unions are present. Achievement scored in RI are not great. That drives up the K-12 costs.

Texas, Florida, Southern states do not have Unions. Much easier to get teaching jobs. Lower pay and benefits but cost of living is lower too.