Plains keeps wrestling, softball, cross country

After a month-long postponement for more research, the Plains School Board decided to keep their cross country, wrestling and softball teams, but to give each only $6,000 and let the programs raise the rest of the funds themselves.

Richard Magera, the Plains superintendent, made the proposal to divide the money between these lesser-attended sports. In the beginning of the meeting, his original proposal was to pool the money, but the board decided against it because the three sports occur at different times of the year.

While the 2008 budget cut decisions were made, the board was still undecided about a formal policy that would determine when a sport would be cut from Plains extracurricular programs. The school board talked about using a tiered policy to classify the sports. If implemented the policy would divide all high school sports into two categories, tier one and tier two.

All tier one sports would receive full funding, while tier two sports would be considered for cuts, either through less financial support or by simply being dropped from the high schools extracurricular programs.

Magera felt that creating the tiered policy would be very difficult, but had an idea of what the board might do. “It’s tough to calculate what’s a tier one and tier two sport,” Magera said and added that he thought the traditional sports of football, basketball, volleyball and track would probably be considered for a tier one classification because the majority of schools in the area participate in them.

Girls softball coach, Rus Heward, also wondered about how a tiered system would function, since he’s expecting to see his softball numbers increase for next season. “I think the tiered program will need to be reviewed on a yearly basis,” Heward said, “We should not be left to a tier two sport if we have more players than a tier one sport.”

While the $6,000 will be given to the three programs, each had different costs. According to the school board last year’s cross country’s budget was $7,400, the wrestling’s budget was $12,500 and the softball’s budget was $11,300 for a total of $31,200. The cross country program will only need to raise $1,400 to keep their program running while wrestling and softball will have to make up a larger difference. Another important part of the accepted plan is that the $6,000 allowance for each sport also includes coaches salaries, so if programs can’t raise enough money the coaches will not be paid.

Magera said he was optimistic after talking with Larry Markuson, the Hot Springs superintendent. Magera said that Markuson had told him that they would co-op the wrestling traveling costs, which would significantly lower wrestling’s costs. Katy French said that softball might be able to save funds by the games they decide to go to.

Heward felt the decision might have to be reconsidered because the budget didn’t take into account the numbers within each sport. “It shouldn’t be $6,000 a piece flat across the board,” Heward said, “It needs to be proportionate to the number of kids playing instead of so much for each program.”

Heward said that he would be meeting with parents and the girls who will be participating next year in order to develop a fundraising effort so the girls will be able to go to as many games as possible. “If we can’t fund raise the amount we need that will definitely impact the number of games were going to be able to go to” Heward said.

The budget cuts are a result of the $55,000 high school general fund levy that failed to pass in May. The levy would have been approximately 10.3 mills and was estimated to cost a homeowner of a $100,000 house about $20.46 annually. The levy failed 349-256, a 16 percent margin.

The school board plans to wait until July before they give a formal proposal of a tiered policy and what sports would be categorized as a tier one or a tier two sport. French said that the board would look for the best possible solution. “I think it was clear at the meeting that there was a feeling of camaraderie and that the school board was going to do whatever we need to do to keep our sports,” French said.