PORT TOWNSEND — After viewing a presentation on options and listening to pleas from soccer parents, coaches and players, the Port Townsend School Board on Monday handed off cuts in high school athletic programs to administrators.
“We will leave it to the administration to make this decision,” said board member John Eissenger, who chaired Monday night’s Port Townsend School District board meeting in the absence of Loren Monroe.
“We’ll see how the administration goes forward.”
About 100 people, most wearing the high school’s color of red, crowded into the meeting to protest one option to remedy part of a $750,000 shortfall in the district operating budget for 2004-2004 school year — cutting both the boys and girls soccer teams.
“Ever since I started playing soccer, my goal was to play on the high school team,” said Alice Peterson, 16.
“I’m asking that all sports have an equal cut.”
That would jeopardize the integrity of programs whose coaches’ salaries are already low, according to an analysis presented by Principal Carrie Ehrhardt and Russ Hickman, the high school athletic director.
10 percent cut requested
In facing the $750,000 deficit, the district has asked for a 10 percent cut in athletics and activities expenses — about $12,000 for athletics and $5,500 for activities.
Eliminating the salaries of four soccer coaches would save almost $12,000, Hickman said.
Other options would be to cut a combination of sports — boys’ soccer, fastpitch and swimming, for example — to reach the $12,000 cut, he said.
After the presentation, Ehrhardt ask the board to give the community a chance to raise the funds before the Nisqually League sets its schedules for next year, a deadline of June 9.
“If we can raise $12,000 in two weeks, we can do it — otherwise, we’re going to have to make a choice,” Ehrhardt said.
“Bring on the money.”
