UNC announces athletic staff pay cuts and furloughs
Posted September 3, 2020 4:45 p.m. EDT
Updated September 3, 2020 7:16 p.m. EDT
Chapel Hill, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's athletic department and coaching staff will face pay cuts and furloughs for the 2020-21 calendar year, school officials said in a memo on its website Thursday.
Effective Oct. 1 and through June 30, 2021, full-time athletic staff will take pay cuts or be furloughed for 15 days. Sports budgets have also been cut by up to 10 percent, a spending freeze has been put into place and all non-essential travel is halted.
"We already have cut our sport budgets by 10 percent for 2020-21, implemented a spending freeze, halted non-essential travel and left 17 full-time open positions in the department unfilled," UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham said in the memo. "In addition, earlier today we shared with our department a difficult decision: effective October 1, we will implement a salary reduction or furlough to each full-time member of our staff, as follows:
- Coaches and staff members making $200,000 or more will have their salaries reduced by 20 percent,
- Coaches and staff members making $100,000 to $200,000 will have their salaries reduced by 10 percent, and
- Coaches and staff members who make less than $100,000 will be furloughed for 15 days.
"This was not an easy decision. 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."
UNC also said in the memo that it stands to lose between $30 million and $52 million in revenue, ticket sales, sponsorship, television revenue, concession sales and conference distributions.
