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NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Apr 30, 2010 11:24:26 AM

The Division II Presidents Council moved one step closer to a more equitable distribution of Division II resources during its spring meeting Thursday in Indianapolis.

The Council considered a proposal from the Division II Planning and Finance Committee to alter the Division II enhancement fund by eliminating the current conference distribution model that is based on success in the men's and women's basketball tournaments.

Currently, the enhancement fund in Division II is $5.1 million, and that amount could grow in the near future with the announcement of the Association's new 14-year media agreement.

In place of the current Division II distribution plan, the Council considered (and appeared to be comfortable with) a formula that would send 75 percent of the fund to conference offices based on sports sponsorship (as measured by the number of championships conferences offer in NCAA sports) and 25 percent of the fund to member schools based on equal distribution.

The Planning and Finance Committee will consider this recommendation again during its August meeting before it seeks final approval from the Presidents Council later this summer.

Committee chair Beverley Pitts, president of the University of Indianapolis, said the approach was the fairest of the many models that were considered.

"We probably looked at as many as 20 different models, including a new one we received during the last 30 days from the Division II Conference Commissioners Association," she said, "and in nearly every case, there was some way in which some conference budgets took extremely big hits. This model, the 75-25 model, played itself out in the fairest way and allowed no major negative effects on the conferences or on the schools that pay conference membership dues."

In the 75-25 model, 17 of the 22 Division II conferences would get a larger distribution – typically 15 to 25 percent more – through the sports-sponsorship plan than under the current arrangement. Those few conferences receiving slightly less money would be made whole by an enhancement formula transitional fund that the planning and finance committee will administer. The individual school allocation would be reduced by about $1,400 per institution under this plan.

Pitts said that the additional funding for conference offices is key to the overall success of the division.

"We wanted to find a model that supported the conferences as much as possible," she said, "because in the strategic plan, there's such a strong connection between strong conferences and carrying out the plan itself."

In addition, this new plan will provide more stability in conference budget planning, she said. The formula that included distributions based on success in the basketball tournaments often provided wide, and sometimes unpredictable, variances in conference funding from year to year.

The enhancement fund is separate from Division II's other primary revenue-distribution mechanism, the conference grant program. Conference grants are awarded at the discretion of the Planning and Finance Committee and are closely aligned with the Division II strategic plan.

"We're trying to strike a balance," Pitts said. "While we have made the conference grants more rigorous, more tied to the strategic plan and more directive, we wanted to free up the funds to support the operations of the conferences and the schools. Now, we think those two are more in balance."

Other information from the Planning and Finance Committee:

• About $150,000 in conference grants for conference television productions that were not used in 2009-10 will be made available for conference TV production costs during the 2010-11 academic year. This will be administered through grant applications this summer. The grant program for conference TV production costs had been scheduled to conclude this year.
• The committee endorsed a plan to cover travel and per diem expenses for all rounds of the Division II Men's and Women's Tennis Championships. The plan will reduce the fields from 64 to 48 teams but will relieve the participating schools of travel and per diem expenses for regional-round competition.
• The Presidents Council noted the creation of a Long-Range Projections Task Force, to be chaired by West Texas A&M President Pat O'Brien. The group will be tasked with reviewing current Division II budget practices and projections and offering a 10- to 14-year budget framework to the Division II Planning and Finance Committee for consideration.

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