The forced budget cuts at Maine’s flagship school are now affecting the University of Maine’s student-athletes.

The Black Bears’ athletic department announced Wednesday that it would eliminate two sports – men’s soccer and women’s volleyball – effective June 30.

“There were no good solutions,” Maine Athletic Director Blake James said during a phone interview. “This was the best solution for a terrible situation.”

According to a university news release, individual Maine units, including the athletics department, are responsible for developing budget reductions for annual budgets beginning July 1.

The athletics department’s share of that cut is $253,000, an amount based on its allocation of the university’s base budget. On top of that cut, the athletics department’s budget is adversely affected by other economy-related factors, including endowment losses, reduced annual gifts, declines in ticket sales, and lower-than-expected merchandise receipts and other externally generated revenues. Those factors will create shortfalls totaling another $618,000 in the upcoming fiscal year. All factors combined create an overall athletics department budget shortfall of $871,000 for the next year.

The soccer and volleyball program suspensions will result in a projected first-year saving of approximately $600,000 and eventual ongoing annual savings of more than $900,000.

“We had a specific budget shortfall that we had to address,” James said. “We looked at all sorts of different options, and how do we address this issue. Unfortunately for men’s soccer and volleyball, it ended up being that suspending those two programs was the best solution for this situation.”

The rest of the first-year budget reduction total ($271,000) will be met through internal revenue-generating and cost-saving procedures, such as schedule reductions, guarantee games and other adjustments.

“We looked at a number of different components when making these decisions,” James said.

Volleyball offered 12 scholarships and had 15 athletes, while men’s soccer doled out 7 scholarships and had a total of 26 players on the roster. Once those student-athletes decide whether to continue at Maine or transfer, James said, the department will have a better picture of what ultimate savings the cuts will produce. James said that once those scholarships are honored, they will not be redistributed to other sports.

“It wasn’t something we were sitting on, or knew we were going to do and just held it back,” James said. “As soon as the realization came that it would be these sports, we wanted to move on it as quickly as possible in order to make the student-athletes and coaches aware of our decision … When these students who are here now are no longer with the program, those scholarships will be gone.”

James said Wednesday that as far as he know – and he hopes – this is a one-time deal.

“I hope we never have to do this again,” James said. “I honestly would have hoped we never would have had to make the decision we made today, and I believe that, given the decision we made today, and the support structure we have in place both internally and externally, that we have positioned ourselves to move forward in the current economic conditions, and as the economy gets better, hopefully it will better position our program for greater success.”