June 11 UIL Legislative Council Meeting Highlights

Highlights from the latest UIL Legislative Council meeting:

Resources:
➢ Click here for the meeting webcasts, agendas and related info.
➢ Final actions (pdf).

UIL Executive Director Charles Breithaupt Announces Retirement Plans

UIL Executive Director Charles Breithaupt announced during the meeting that he will retire after the 2024-25 academic year.

Breithaupt recently completed his 29th year with the league in capacities that have included associate athletic director, athletic director, and finally (for the last 15 years), executive director.

Prior to joining the league in 1995, Breithaupt, a Buna ISD high school graduate, had a 17-year career in Texas public schools where he served as a coach, athletic director, assistant principal, high school principal and a school board member.

It will ultimately be up to UT Austin (the league’s administrative parent) to choose Breithaupt’s successor (because UIL staff are UT Austin employees).

Breithaupt serves in the dual role of UIL executive director and as a UT Austin associate vice president.

His current annual base pay is $461,763. The UIL Legislative Council Finance Committee voted last month to ask UT Austin to increase Breithaupt’s salary for the upcoming fiscal year, beginning Sept. 1, 2024, by 7.5 percent, in recognition of the fine job he has done for the state’s students, parents and schools.

Split Playoff Divisions Approved for More Sports

The only UIL contest rule approved by the Legislative Council mirrors the current split postseason 6A division football championship format for: 1) 2A to 6A volleyball, softball and baseball; 2) 4A to 6A soccer, and 3) 1A to 6A basketball. The rule change will become effective on Aug. 1, 2024, unless vetoed by the education commissioner.

• Note: Click here for the full text of the adopted rule (also summarized in this UIL press release).

The council additionally denied, rejected or took no action on — or directed UIL staff to study or monitor — dozens of other proposed rule changes in the areas of athletics, music, academics and policy.

Adopted 2024-25 UIL Budget Drops Payment to UT Austin’s Defunct DEI Division

The Legislative Council approved the UIL’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year — Sept. 1, 2024, to Aug. 31, 2025.

The adopted budget projects revenues to the league totaling nearly $15.5 million and expenses totaling nearly $15.3 million, leaving the league with a projected budgetary surplus of $210,575 (see graphic).

• Note: The budget had been previously recommended for the full council’s approval during a meeting last month of the UIL Legislative Council Finance Committee — after the then-proposed budget had been vetted and approved by UT Austin.

$12.2 Million Budget Surplus
UIL Deputy Director Jamie Harrison said that a major goal is to reduce — because it is too much — the budget surplus (totaling about $12.2 million as of Aug. 31, 2023) by reducing contest participation costs to schools as much as possible. (Several superintendents on the Finance Committee asked league staff to try to find additional ways to reduce their direct and indirect contest participation costs in light of the crippling budgetary shortfalls affecting schools statewide.)

Harrison described to the full council (during this latest meeting) a number of initiatives launched by the league to absorb more of the costs and/or reduce associated costs to UIL participating schools and their parent/student constituents.

Harrison noted that the adopted budget contains no increases, for next school year, for membership fees charged per school and for state championship athletic contest tournament ticket prices.

Harrison also described other cost-cutting initiatives contained in either the newly adopted budget, or included in the current budget — such as dropping all fees for academic contest materials (which are now available for free online) and eliminating the fee for student athletic participation waiver requests. The league has also increased mileage reimbursements for schools traveling to state athletic contests, Harrison said.

No More DEI “Fees”
Dropped entirely from this year’s budget is the annual fee — totaling a flat $150,000 over the past few years (and more in prior years) — that the UIL has been paying to UT Austin’s Division of Campus and Community Engagement (DCCE).

• Note: The state-law ban on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at public higher-ed entities resulted in UT Austin transferring the league out of the UIL’s long-time organizational position at the no-longer-in-existence DCCE — and into the university’s Governmental Affairs and Initiatives Division (article).

The adopted UIL budget does, however, contain $722,425 in projected “indirect costs/overhead” expenditures that will be payable to the university, an increase of about $5,925 from what is budgeted for that purpose for the current fiscal year.

This cost has been frequently described, by UIL officials at prior meetings with the council, as reimbursements to the university to provide maintenance, repair and related services (such as changing lightbulbs, restocking toilet paper, etc.) at the UIL-owned headquarters building that sits on UT Austin owned land — and providing administrative services (such as payroll) for the league.

The council’s next meeting will be Oct. 13-14 in an Austin area hotel.