Despite losing millions of dollars amid the coronavirus pandemic, the University of Texas will make three increases in assistant football coaches, an official from the board of directors confirmed to Sporting News on Wednesday.

The school said on April 14 that it would freeze merit increases for all faculty and staff in an effort to avoid layoffs and other academic budget cuts. This does not appear to apply to offensive line coach Herb Hand, associate coach / back coach Stan Drayton and strength coach Yancy McKnight, who will have their salaries increased by a combined total of $ 268,000.

They will now earn more than $ 500,000 annually; The UT workers’ average salary is $ 60,000.

Less than an hour before the increases were confirmed by closed-door voting on Wednesday, Regents President Kevin Eltife acknowledged that further cost-cutting measures for the academic side of UT institutions would likely be reserved, as the hemorrhage system money in the middle of the pandemic.

“Let’s look at every dollar we are spending,” said Eltife. “We are going to have to look at everything from top to bottom.”

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Texas universities were hit by two economic scams during the pandemic: not only are they losing money by paying students for housing and parking fees, they are also seeing reserve funds cut by the crater market.

The Texas Longhorns football team, of course, is currently inactive and unable to generate revenue. Spring practices have been canceled due to COVID-19 outages, and summer exercises are also at risk. Until the 2020 season is uncertain. Total coaches’ salaries are guaranteed, regardless of whether games are played.

After this story was published, officials at the University of Texas at Austin told Sporting News that the increases were negotiated (but not approved) before the pandemic. Even before this period of uncertainty, however, the school system faced the prospect of significant cuts.

“The funds for the increases come entirely from the Texas athletics budget, a self-sustaining arm of the university that fully supports itself and generates revenue for the university’s academic endeavors,” said school spokesman J.B. Bird. “Texas is one of the few universities with an athletics division that does not receive funds from the university’s budget. As the high school athletics scene faces challenges from COVID-19, the university will continue to expect Texas athletics to operate within the limits of its while transferring funds to UT academic companies. “

Although the athletic department is financially maintained separately from the rest of the school, it does provide crucial funds for the academic side of the institution, which means that its balance is important to the school’s overall welfare. It depends a lot on donations and revenues related to events, which can be affected by the pandemic.

Football programs elsewhere are not immune to reductions in wages and leave. In the state of Boise, for example, most of the employees were laid off. Louisville followed suit with a similar ad One day later.

Texas has advanced towards the national relevance of football under Tom Herman, but has not yet reached the peak of the mid-2000s. The team won a national championship for the last time in 2005 and played for the last time in 2009. The team it was 8-5 in 2019.