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Rutgers University President Robert Barchi, shown in this file photo, and other school officials today called the expenditures a one-time spike that would not upset the timetable for solvency.

(Star-Ledger file photo)

By Craig Wolff and Tom Luicci/The Star-Ledger

On the brink of a financial bonanza with its move to the Big Ten Conference, Rutgers University spent nearly $47âmillion to balance its athletic department’s books last year, a subsidy that was $19âmillion more than the year before and one of the largest that any public university sports program has ever received, according to a report delivered to the NCAA last month.

Following on recent promises that the athletic department would be self-sufficient in six years, University President Robert Barchi and other school officials today called the expenditures a one-time spike that would not upset the timetable for solvency.

The losses, he said, would have "no impact whatsoever" on goals he set as early as the fall of 2012, when the move from the Big East was first announced.

On July 1, after a transition year in the American Athletic Conference, Rutgers will officially become part of the Big Ten Conference, where mega TV deals and other riches await. School officials have conservatively projected the athletic department will receive $200 million over its first 11 years in the Big Ten.

The subsidy numbers, which rose 67.9 percent over the previous year, were included in the 2013 report submitted to the National Collegiate Athletic Association and first reported today by USA Today.

The numbers revealed a stark reality — that Rutgers was still coping, at least in part, with the fallout from the controversy surrounding its former basketball coach, Mike Rice, who was fired after video surfaced showing him shoving and cursing at his players.

The school gave more than $2.2 million in contract payouts to Rice and Tim Pernetti, the former athletic director who left the university in the wake of the Rice controversy, and to Fred Hill, another former basketball coach.

The aftereffects of the scandal played a role in a 12.6 percent drop in overall ticket sales and a 32âpercent falloff in donations to the athletic department, said Janine Purcaro, the department’s chief financial officer.

"The difficulty in fundraising, in the face of all the turmoil we experienced last spring, was to be expected," Purcaro said, adding there has been a uptick in fundraising in recent months because of the impending move to the Big Ten.

Other one-time expenses include a $5 million down payment on an $11.5 million exit fee to the AAC, one of two successors to the Big East. Rutgers also lost $1.5 million in revenue when Texas Christian University withdrew plans to join the Big East, leaving the football team with a hole in its schedule.

In addition, the university spent $7 million to terminate its contract with Nelligan Sports Marketing. A new contract with IMG College marketing will guarantee the school $65 million over 11 years, Barchi said.

Barchi said that it was necessary to delve beneath the raw figures in the financial statement.

"If you take away the one-time costs, which are business decisions, the actual subsidy went up only slightly and will go down again this year," Barchi said in an interview. "It went up 10 percent and will go back down."

The athletic department’s budget for 2012-13 was $79 million. However, it needed close to $47 million in subsidies, including $37.1 million in "direct institutional support."

In 2011-12, with an overall budget of $64 million, the athletics department needed $28âmillion in subsidies, including $18.5âmillion in "direct institutional support."

Overall, one-time expenditures accounted for nearly $16 million in the 2012-13 budget.

Although Rutgers faces a six-year transition period before receiving a full share of revenue from the Big Ten, a boon for the school seems almost inevitable. Each Big Ten school receives a $25.7 million payment from the conference, a payday that is expected to increase dramatically when a string of TV deals are negotiated.

"Had we stayed in the Big East or American Athletic Conference, we would have never gotten to the point where we could even think about being self-sufficient," said Purcaro, the athletics department’s chief financial officer.

"We have a long transition period to the Big Ten. But once we get there, the university and the athletic department will be in a much better position to become self-sufficient and reduce institutional support to the athletic department."

Star-Ledger staff writer Ted Sherman contributed to this report.