Potsdam parents: why not cut sports?
POTSDAM — The parents and community members who attended Potsdam Central School's first budget forum Tuesday night wanted to know why the district would consider cutting so many teachers and extracurricular activities without first making any significant slashes to sports programs.
"I would not cut a teacher if you didn't really decimate the sports budget first," Carol E. Strome said.
The board of education's finance committee has been considering a strategic plan that outlines $1.5 million in positions and programs that could be cut to compensate for budget shortfalls in 2009-10. The "menu" of cuts includes 15 full-time jobs, 11 part-time positions and all extracurricular activities.
"A harder look needs to be made at sports. Can you save some people's jobs, even one or two, by cutting there?" Adrienne S. Hartman said. "I think you really need to consider what your priority is. What happens after 3 o'clock is awesome and everybody loves it, but you have to concentrate on what happens between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m."
The strategic plan puts the boys and girls modified cross-country teams, fall season cheerleading and an assistant coaching position on the chopping block. That would save about $15,000 from the $347,000 athletic budget.
In contrast, cutting all of the district's 56 extracurricular activities would save only $54,674.
"In retrospect, we probably should have put sports on the menu as we did with extracurricular activities," Superintendent Patrick H. Brady said. "But those programs connect students to the school. I don't think we're going to want to cut all of our after-school programs to save jobs, because they teach leadership and I think if we do, we're going to see more at-risk behavior and less achievement."
"We don't need to offer lots of sports in every season, along with lots of other extracurricular programs, in order to achieve the good of bonding students to the school," Jeffrey Clark said in the public comment period. "I think it's a false argument that if you deprive students of these things, they'll become disaffected and start graffiti-ing Market Street. The gangs of Potsdam are not going to break out."
Potsdam resident Nicholas A. Hughes, who coaches the women's crew team for St. Lawrence University, Canton, said the district should be able to figure out how much it costs to run every sports and extracurricular program for each student who participates.
"Where are we getting the most bang for our buck per after-school program? Where is the money best spent?" he said. "Although it doesn't really solve the problem if you cut lacrosse and they all go play baseball."
Board President Ann M. Carvill said that sports is only part of a bigger picture, because salaries, retirement and health insurance cost about $16 million out of the $26 million budget.
"Everything, every single thing, has to be on the table. You have to look at the nickels and dimes," said Edward J. Hanlon, a former school board member. "We're not talking the 2009-10 school year, and then we're smelling the roses again. This thing is going to last awhile. There's a number of years ahead of us, and things are going to get really tough."
Board member Mary Ashley Carroll told the members of the public that she can't really agonize over how much should be cut, proportionally, from each department.
"We're talking two different languages here. You're looking for percentages, and we're just looking for dollars. This is such a shortfall that we're just looking for where we can cut the most money without harming the children," she said. "It's heartwrenching, quite frankly."
