Alex - 07 May 2008 11:22 AM

The budget is public information and can be reviewed at the administration office. I recall seeing it the other year and while I don’t recall the exact amounts, it was a large line item on the budget. Of course, you have to watch how they manipulate the numbers and make sure all extras are included there, not hidden elsewhere.

Here are some costs to consider:

1. Field maintenance
2. Uniforms
3. Busses and fuel
4. Insurance
5. Coaches salaries/fees
6. Referee fees
7. Playing equipment
8. League fees if any

It adds up. A few years ago I recall an arguement of books/teachers vs football. Football won. The budget item was about $450,000 that year. Who knows what that number included but it was substantial.

We can’t offer every sport or activity. What’s next? Swim teams? Ice hockey? Where does the madness end? We can’t afford our taxes so our school board, who is well aware of the problem, goes ahead and authorizes spending more money for another sport. Are they out of their minds?

We already have ice hockey.  I go to some of the games and they are great.  This area has some of the best hockey in the state.  I wouldn’t exactly call it madness either since we get to or close to the finals practivcally every year.  Also if it was madness, almost every other school district in York county including catholic schools as well as some in Lancaster, Dauphin, and Berks probably wouldn’t be doing it either.  Athletics is more like work in many cases thatn sitting in the classroom.  You have to analyze a situation, reason and determine how to react, follow-up, and live with the consequences, not to mention learn to lead.  Football if done correctly could easily pay for itself.  Basketball doen’t realy cost you anything - the gym is there anyway.  Refs are realtively cheap.  Those guys certainly ore not there for the money.

Jason - 08 May 2008 02:56 PM

pbres - 07 May 2008 03:41 PM

Anonymous1, you’ve hit the nail on the head.  I’ve argued at past board meetings that you could cut the entire extracurricular budget and have little to no effect on rising property taxes.  The line items that keep going up each year (personnel salaries, health insurance, etc.) will keep going up.  We’d be in the exact same situation only without extracurricular activities for the kids.  The bottom line problem is we are not adequately funded by the state.

Exactly. Low haging fruit doesn’t really get you anywhere.

I think it’s important to select a few ideas that are “low hanging fruit” to build credibility and confidence in change early, but you need to set the expectations and understand the strategic intent of early easy changes if you want to create a longer term goals. Almost any layman can look at the budget and find three or four ideas to implement quickly - that’s not really a challenge.  The challenge will arise when the “low hanging fruit” is gone, and you have to change the administrations’ point of view concerning the public expectations about controlling the budget.

Baby steps will lead to longer strides.

With the new teacher’s contract up for debate how could one ask for concessions on their part without looking at cutting extraciriccular or non-educational related activities?

Anybody know of any district that has cut all non-educational programs????  Are our taxes that out of wack compared to the rest of the state??

Nobody said cut all non-educational programs, just stop adding them when we don’t have the money and I believe I like Alex’s comments about why they shouldn’t be paid for by taxpayers anyway.  It’s true, we have to provide an education but shouldn’t the parents pay for the extras for their kids?

excuse me for jumping to conclusions but it has been implied by multiple posts here that cuts should be made in order to lower the budget, so I was just asking the question.  maybe I’ll rephrase then, are there any districts where extras are paid for?  and it would have to be all, because you certainly could not ask the hockey players/parents to pay if softball is funded or the gifted kids to pay if others do not etc.

We have friends that live in Massachusettes they have pay for play in their school district.  What has ended up happening is a social class divsion between the kids whose parents can afford to have them play and the kids whose parents can not afford it so consequently they don’t play.  Apparently prior to going to a pay for play system in their district they had a consultant brought in from somewhere else who explained that this very thing would happen as they had seen it in other districts thoughout the rest of the country where they already had it.  The consultant was ignored and they ended up with exactly what they were told they were going to have. 

Additionally they told me that they have an extremely difficult time finding coaches to coach there because the parents all have the same line about “I paid as much as so and so paid therefore my kid should play as much as so and so does”.  Basically they have turned their varsity programs into glorified recreation teams and have even dropped some sports because they either didn’t have enough kids that could afford to play that sport or they couldn’t get coaches to coach their teams.  How long do you think it would take for that to happen here? 

By the way, their taxes continue to go up just like ours do....

And there are many places in this country where they have successful pay to play programs and families who can’t afford it, don’t have to pay, and in some cases none have to pay because the fund raise and cover all the fees.  It has also, in some places, brought enough awareness to the costs involved that the community increased their attendance and the some sports programs are even now profitable.  As far as, I paid the same, my kid should play as much as everyone else, where don’t we have that mentality now?  Paying for extracur items is the same as paying for other kids clothing.  We better add in the budget to make sure each kid has at least five $50 Hollister tshirts so they aren’t looked upon as lower class.  I see no difference.  We need to move back to private charity, hard work, fundraising and not gov’t handouts or tax levies for the things we WANT.

BevyJean - 09 May 2008 03:29 PM

We need to move back to private charity, hard work, fundraising and not gov’t handouts or tax levies for the things we WANT.

QFE

Just out of curiousity, how many of you have kids currently in the SD? Specifically, in the high school or middle school? I can’t believe cutting the extracurriculars sounds good to ANY of you!! Can you really believe that taking these away and making the parents pay is a good idea? Have any of you seen a college application lately? Not one of the colleges/universities we’ve looked at simply asks for GPA. They all, without fail, want to know how many other activities your child is involved in. Including church and community. And how many of those involved a leadership position? And how long you’ve been involved in them as well as recommendations from coaches, conductors, pastors, teacher, etc.
There are plenty of kids at the high school that are not involved in sports or music. They might work at Klein’s or MacDonalds. But the ones who are going to school and coming home to do their homework and then watch tv are not as likely to get into good schools upon graduation. They haven’t got a proven track record of being able to handle more than one thing at a time and therefore not as likely to succeed in the ‘real’ world where we all have several things on our plate at once.

Again, who said cut sports?  This is about adding when we are already strapped, sure there have been tangents, and ideas.  I have one child who lives in the district, but does not go to district schools, and in the fall another.

Just out of curiousity, how many of you think that it’s ok to have senior citizens pay for your kids to play sports?

Can you give some examples of places where pay for play works?  I personally would be very interested in reading/learning more about that because it is contrary to what I’ve been told.  Maybe a website or something with some data that we could access and digest?

Also, as I stated earlier, I just don’t see how removing the extracurriculars from our 42 or 43,000,000.00 budget would affect our tax bill every year.  I personally believe that sports and extracurricular activities are part of the edcucational process and the high school experience.  So, I guess to answer your question, no, I don’t have a problem with the senior citizens paying for the kids to play sports, any more than I have a problem with them paying for any other part of the education that they receive.  Additionally, do you think that our taxes will not continue to go up if we went to a pay for play format?

Just curious what does QFE mean?  I’m not quite as computer literate as most of you seem to be.

anonymous1 - 09 May 2008 05:24 PM

Can you give some examples of places where pay for play works?  I personally would be very interested in reading/learning more about that because it is contrary to what I’ve been told.  Maybe a website or something with some data that we could access and digest?

Also, as I stated earlier, I just don’t see how removing the extracurriculars from our 42 or 43,000,000.00 budget would affect our tax bill every year.  I personally believe that sports and extracurricular activities are part of the edcucational process and the high school experience.  So, I guess to answer your question, no, I don’t have a problem with the senior citizens paying for the kids to play sports, any more than I have a problem with them paying for any other part of the education that they receive.  Additionally, do you think that our taxes will not continue to go up if we went to a pay for play format?

Just curious what does QFE mean?  I’m not quite as computer literate as most of you seem to be.

I googled it and came up with:

Acronym Definition
QFE Atmospheric pressure (Q) at Field Elevation (aviation)
QFE Quad Fast Ethernet
QFE Quest for Excellence
QFE Question for Everyone (online chats and forums)
QFE Quick Fix Engineering (Microsoft)
QFE Quoted for Emphasis

Perhaps it is the fourth definition?

Queen Fiona’s Earrings. 
Quilts For Everyone.
Quiet Folks Everywhere.
“Quench Fire” Extinguishers…

Quarter from Exelon
Quintessential frothing episode
Quit fussing, Edna!

QUIT FUNDING EVERYTHING!