Sorry guys that I haven't chimed in before but, I have been busy with my day job lately. First, the district itself provides some assistance for extra-curricular sports, but, not as much as you would think. A few years back we started paying for the costs of officials and transportation for the sports programs. Those costs were outstripping the schools abilities to keep with up with them. And, the schools were have to fundraise for those costs. That subsidy approached $160,000.00. We have reduced that subsidy by half over the past three years. Of course, we pay coaches a supplement for their coaching duties, which is shamefully low, but, it is a cost. For example, a high school assistant football coach makes an extra $4,100 a year. For the number of hours they spend in practice, games, practice prep, scouting, etc., the pay is not lucrative at all. Some coaches will coach multiple sports and get a couple of supplements, but, as a whole, we don't spend a ton of money of those programs.
Gate receipts and concessions help. However, there is no way to avoid that football drives that machine. Football gate receipts at most schools fund the "spring" and "olympic" sport costs, i.e., uniforms, equipment. None of our schools' baseball programs ever take in enough at the gate to pay for their hard costs even with the district supplementing their travel and officiating costs.
Let me talk about fundraising for a minute. I have always thought of fundraising is really another tax. I had a south Walton businessman tell me that he gave over $5,000.00 to the extracurricular activities at S. Walton High one year. That same year he paid over $20,000.00 in school related real property taxes. So, although voluntary, he kind of saw that fundraising as another tax. We have tried to discourage fundraising except for the truly extra extra stuff, but, it is still a necessary evil.
Parents do pay many expenses of playing sports. I know that some teams, when they travel, do not provide food money for kids. That is an expense that parents must bear. For some parents, that is an expense that they cannot afford. And, there are other expenses I am sure they bear and have bore in the past. I have always felt that economic need should not be a barrier to full participation in any activity that a public school sponsors. Thus, my support of trying to help schools with the costs of these programs.
Lastly, as for reading coaches. Reading coaches have a distinct role, mostly in our elementary schools. They teach the teachers strategies for implementing the District's K-12 reading plan. We have cut four in the last two years and we will have four positions left. Marsh Pugh, our district curriculum specialist fees strongly that we can manage to continue to implement the reading plan with fewer coaches, especially at the elementary level. Since we have had them for many years, many of the reading strategies are in place already. Thus, Marsha felt, we could absorb those cuts without any effect on the quality of reading teaching.
We have made cuts in extracurricular funding as well. We have reduced the number of supplemented positions by 10%. We reduced summer pay by 30% and as stated earlier, we have reduced the travel and officials supplement by half.
The WZEP article was accurate as to the other cuts we have made. Our goal in searching for cuts was to preserve services to students and hopefully not lay off too many people. We did cut 20 teaching positions, most of which we will absorb through attrition and 20 support positions. But, again, we felt we could do that without a significant reduction in student services. But, we are getting close to not being able to make cuts without cutting services. And, 2.1 million of our operating budget for the coming year is stimulus money. That will probably not occur next year. Frankly, that would be about 40 more positions.
Thanks for letting me go on an on.......