Lower Athletic Ticket Prices - Keep Extracurricular Athletic Budget As Is

What Short-Term Option Would I Suggest for Board Consideration? � I would lower the ticket prices to last year�s prices and include volleyball and swimming. Why - families with low or tight budgets are the ones being disenfranchised, and I believe that the drop in attendance will all but wipe out any potential gains from increased ticket prices. I would also not add any additional funds to the athletics budget and have the District Administration, Athletic Directors, Booster club representatives, parents, kids need to come together to review and to prioritize the extracurricular sports budget.

What Short-Term Option Would I Suggest for Board Consideration? � I would lower the ticket prices to last year�s prices and include volleyball and swimming. Why - families with low or tight budgets are the ones being disenfranchised, and I believe that the drop in attendance will all but wipe out any potential gains from increased ticket prices. I would also not add any additional funds to the athletics budget and have the District Administration, Athletic Directors, Booster club representatives, parents, kids need to come together to review and to prioritize the extracurricular sports budget. My reasons for this recommendation follow:

� Extracurricular Sports Budget - The '04-'05 extracurricular sports budget is $2 million including the $210,000 the board transferred from the educational fund to the extracurricular sports budget several weeks ago. The approximate cost/extracurricular sports participant using �03-�04 numbers is $484/participant (not including revenues from fees and ticket sales) and $395/participant net (including the reduced budget expense when fees and ticket sale revenues are included). I expect the numbers for �04-�05 are not that much different. Consider that you spend on academics about $1,000/child on elementary math and $200-250/child on elementary art. Spending more than the current amount/participant on extracurricular sports does not make strategic or fiscal sense.

� What Can the District Spend on Extracurricular Sports? - Board members need to ask how much can the District spend on extracurricular sports. I would suggest that the District cannot spend anymore than you are currently spending and that the additional $210,000 that the board transferred several weeks ago was more than the District could afford to add to extracurricular sports. Board members are saying to the public that the District does not have the money to educate our children � adding money to extracurricular sports before educational priorities does not pass the common sense test. This would seem to imply that academic priorities do not come first, which will be a hard sell to the public when asking for additional operating funds.

� Original Revenue Calculation May Actually Not Add Any Revenue � At your Performance and Achievement Committee, public in attendance asked if the administration had included a drop in attendance when they calculated revenue increases from increased ticket prices. The administration said they had not included a drop in attendance. A 10% drop in attendance would reduce revenues about $24,000. A 30% drop in attendance would reduce revenues $80,000. In sum, you may have no increase in revenue from increased prices if the result of the increased prices is to lower attendance, but there will be disenfranchised parents and bad feelings.

� No Transfer of Educational Contingency Funds to Extracurricular Sports Budget � I do not support the transfer of any educational contingency funds to extracurricular activities without a full public strategic budget discussion by the Board. In the �04-�05 school budget, nearly $10 million was cut from the budget. Educational impacts need to be discussed before transferring funds to extracurricular activities.

� Equity � I do not support transfers to extracurricular sports activities alone. If there are any increases in the extracurricular activities, the Board needs first to look across all extracurricular activities. For example, there are no funds or staff time for this fall�s West High Performance � needed funds for this are $11,000. How can the MMSD School Board justify adding more than $300,000 to the extracurricular sports budget and not $11,000 for the high school performance? This simply does not pass the common sense test.

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Posted by at September 18, 2004 1:51 PM
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