Louisiana lawmakers have faced backlash for using some of their spring legislative session’s final moments not to address some of their state’s myriad needs – but instead to grant the multimillion-dollar wish of the state flagship university’s championship-winning women’s basketball coach.
Poverty, poor education and insufficient healthcare have loomed over Louisiana for decades and have earned the state the country’s lowest rankings in each category, according to the US News and World Report. Louisiana ranks 50th – dead last – in crime and economy, 49th in infrastructure and 46th in education when compared to the rest of the nation, the report says.
However, despite these jarring numbers, the budget approved by the Republican-dominated state legislature slated $101m to a foundation which financially supports Louisiana State University athletics – and it was earmarked to renovate the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, which is best known these days for hosting the women’s basketball team’s home games.
The last-minute line funding renovations at the facility nicknamed the PMAC came at the request of Kim Mulkey, the women’s basketball team’s head coach who is known for her flamboyant fashion sense as well as her outspokenness about the venue’s need for repairs. But giving fees and self-generated revenue from the state to the private foundation in question would also be illegal, Louisiana’s Democratic governor John Bel Edwards has recently said.
The commissioner of admission, Jay Dardenne, said in an interview that the PMAC could only receive such abundant funds – including self-generated revenue and non-cash state funding – if it was labeled as a university project in the budget.
While that blocks the Tiger Athletic Foundation from receiving the full amount, the group is still in line to receive $50m, a substantial amount which could otherwise begin making a dent in Louisiana’s myriad other pressing needs, said former LSU faculty senate president Kevin Cope.
“Such a sluicing of funds into a structure that serves primarily as a basketball court demonstrates that the leaders of our state grant a higher priority to chasing balls up and down a wooden court than to the improvement of its citizens,” Cope said.
Edwards told the Louisiana Illuminator that he kept the illegal funding in the bill so that the foundation would still have money for project planning.
Mulkey openly criticized the condition of the PMAC at a local meeting in April in the state’s capital of Baton Rouge, shortly after her players won the first national crown in their program’s history.
“It’s time,” Mulkey declared. “That thing’s 48-years-old. It’s dangerous in there. Don’t grab a rail without holding onto somebody.”
As the crowd broke out into laughter, Mulkey added, “I can say all of this now. I’ve won the national championship.”
But Edwards was disinterested in Mulkey’s request. He said that his main priority for this year’s capital budget is to provide funding for a new LSU library due to the substandard status of the campus’s 68-year-old library.
Robert Mann – an LSU professor, author, and political historian who frequently criticizes Louisiana’s government – said that school officials and advocates have spent years pleading for a new library. Despite those pleas, lawmakers allotted only a few million in project planning for a new library.
However, lawmakers quickly delivered on Mulkey’s request for arena improvements, even though the university itself did not ask for PMAC funding.
“If that disgraceful episode doesn’t convince people that our state’s priorities are out of whack, I don’t know what will,” Mann said.
Stuart Bishop, the conservative state representative who authored the bill, assured that providing the PMAC tens of millions in renovation funds was not his main priority for the Louisiana budget. He said for years his top priorities for the state are improving water ports, airports, bridges and roads. But he included funding for the PMAC after multiple requests from colleagues.
“It was a matter of, as it was explained to me, public safety for the PMAC, as well as having another venue on campus or in” the state’s capital, Baton Rouge, Bishop said.
The Republican state representative Tanner Magee added that “women athletes deserve to know that we care just about them as we do” male athletes, including the school’s popular football team. A spokesperson for the athletic department – which generated nearly $200m in revenue last year – said helping the school’s sports teams carries a cultural and promotional benefit measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Edwards could veto the amount of money set aside for the PMAC. But Bishop and Magee were confident he’d avoid resorting to that measure, saying money for the PMAC doesn’t rule out eventual improvements to the library.
“In a perfect world, in 10 years, we’re standing with a new library and a new event center for LSU,” Magee said.
