The Fulcrum details athletic spending at the U of O
Every year University of Ottawa students pay thousands of dollars in tuition, including incidental fees for the university’s different services—including Sports Services.
According to the students’ account statement for the fall 2018 semester, full-time students paid a sum of $114 each, while part-time students paid about half of that towards Sports Services.
This represented a slight $2 increase from fall 2017, where students paid $112.
Sports Services director Susan Hylland said in an email that for the 2017-18 fiscal year, Sports Service had a budget of $16 million, which in part came from students’ incidental fees.
According to U of O spokesperson Isabelle Mailloux-Pulkinghorn, other sources of revenue include program delivery, incidental fees from employees and partnerships including sponsorships, suppliers, donors, fundraising, event revenue, endowed funds, and other special contributions.
Forty-four percent of the budget, or $7 million, was spent on Sports Services programming, which includes the Campus Recreation department, intramurals, camps, the fitness centre, instructional or recreational programs, the 11 Varsity Teams and 22 clubs.
“The funding model for varsity teams treats all students equally across all teams, but team budgets will vary based upon things like the number of student-athletes on the team, league and playoff travel and championship location, number of home and away games, officials requirements (major and minor), league fees, other league requirements, equipment needs, etc.,” Hylland explained.
“There is a fairness applied to all teams, female and male, and anything teams want to do over and above what Sports Services can provide in its budget, is raised by the team through their own fundraising efforts.”
The next biggest slice of the budget is allocated to sports facilities, and amounts to about $5.7 million, or 35 per cent of the total budget.
According to Hylland, Sports Services pays for the operations of, or a portion of the operations of the three athletic facilities on campus—the Minto Sports Complex, Lees, and Montpetit Hall.
Fourteen per cent of the budget is allocated to staffing and administration, as well as IT support for the different programs.
According to the Ontario sunshine list, the highest paid employees of Sports Services are Hylland herself with a salary of $157,531 a year. Head football coach Jamie Barresi is next with a salary of $120,960, then Sports Services vice-director Roger Archambault with $115,331, and finally women’s basketball coach Andy Sparks with $109,561 over a year.
Finally, six per cent of the budget goes to business operations such as event hosting, Sports Info, community outreach, the Gee-Gees website, and about one per cent is held as a contingency fund.
