Speakers urge school board not to cut sports
Saturday, March 26, 2011
By MARCELLA PEYRE-FERRY
PENN — Don’t cut sports programs.
That was the message a standing-room-only crowd of at least 150 residents gave to the Avon Grove School Board on Thursday night.
One after another, the speakers spoke about the value of middle-school, ninth-grade and junior-varsity B team sports programs on a list of possible expenses to be eliminated from the district’s 2011-12 school year budget.
Current high school students were among the speakers, relating how the middle school sports programs were important for them and pleading that they not be cut for the younger students.
Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed cuts to state public education subsidies have put Avon Grove in budget trouble. Even with a 5.9 percent tax increase and $3 million taken from the district’s fund balance, the district remains $3.6 million short of a balanced budget.
Over the past few months, Avon Grove school officials have developed a list of possible budget cuts, with the expenses ranked in three tiers depending on how much they affect students. Before the governor’s budget proposal, district administrators had hoped they would only have to touch the first tier, which contains steps such as doubling student parking fees from $50 to $100 and no longer printing the high school course guide.
The second tier includes reductions in programs with more impact on students. The third tier lists cuts to sports and other programs.
Reports say about 400 of the 900 middle school students participate in sports, at a cost to the district of about $162,000. At that rate, if students were charged for participation, the cost per student would be about $400.
Also proposed are:
• reducing intermurals to save $14,200,
• eliminating JVB boys and girls lacrosse and JVB girls field hockey at the high school for a savings of $12,000,
• eliminating ninth-grade athletics to save $29,891, and
• not filling one coach or adviser from every high school athletic program and student activity that has more than one such person to save $68,351.
A few of the larger items from the list of proposed cuts include cutting the senior citizen tax relief program to save $98,200 and eliminating professional and support staff positions through attrition and retirement to save more than $600,000.
Also proposed is the reduction of about eight professional positions to save $457,795 and reducing support positions to save another $800,000.
“There are a lot of items on this list. You’re going to have to make the decision of what you want to keep in and what you want to leave out,” district Superintendent Augustus Massaro said at the meeting.
During the meeting’s comment period, someone urged the board to take more from the district’s fund balance to avoid cuts to programs, but Massaro cautioned that using money from savings does not solve the funding problem.
“Long term, it can have a devastating financial impact,” he warned.
The budget cuts proposed by Corbett still have to go before the Legislature, and changes could be seen before final approval.
The board encouraged residents to contact their state representatives about the cuts and to attend the school board’s finance committee meetings when budget items are addressed in more specific terms.
The district’s website invites comments on the budget and suggestions for adding revenues or cutting expenses.
“In Avon Grove, our reality is that our revenues are less then our expenditures,” Massaro said. “I’m predicting this gap, for most school districts in the commonwealth, is going to get greater and greater.”
URL: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/03/27/news/doc4d8e5ed1b46ab285847369.prt
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