Paying for the games

Columbia High athletic director Howard Kreps gave White Salmon Valley School District's board of directors the down-and-dirty during the board's November meeting.

In a nutshell, CHS spends roughly $155,000 on athletics -- for an average of $543 per student-athlete -- during a school year. (The $155,000 figure is based on winter 2002-03, spring 2002-03 and fall 2003 expenditures.)

Costs increase whenever CHS sends athletes to invitational tournaments/meets, and district and/or state championship events.

Currently, Columbia High offers 11 varsity sports: three in the fall, three in the winter and five in the spring.

The budget also includes cheerleading, which is not considered a sport, in the fall and winter, as well as junior varsity football and volleyball in the winter, jayvee basketball in the winter, and jayvee baseball and tennis in the spring.

In the fall of 2003, CHS spent $46,039 on football, volleyball, girls soccer and cheerleading. Football is the most expensive sport to operate ($22,549), but also the most lucrative ($6,679 in 2003 gate receipts), while non-revenue-generating cheerleading costs the least ($3,394).

Football, moreover, with 41 paid participants, had by far the largest turnout. Those players generated $2,460 in user fees for the athletics budget. (The user fee is the only source of revenue for CHS athletics; revenue from gate receipts, plus that from the $25 ASB card all student-athletes must buy to play, goes to the separate Associated Student Body athletics fund.)

All told, 95 fall activities participants paid CHS's $60 user fee for a grand total of $5,700 in user-fee revenues.

The fall revenue numbers improved over the previous year's for two reasons: the school board doubled the user fee from $30 to $60, and CHS offered girls soccer for the first time. Nineteen girls signed up for soccer and paid $1,140 to play.

Before the doubling of the user fee and the addition of girls soccer, in a good year, CHS could expect to bring in around $8,250 in user fees (275 participants times $30).

As Kreps pointed out during his budget presentation, user fees don't come close to covering the cost of operating a Class 2A-size school's athletics program.

Assuming 285 CHS student-athletes take part in interscholastic sports (including cheerleading) during the 2003-04 school year, the district will only recoup $17,100 through user fees.

The balance of the estimated $155,000 budget will have to be funded with ASB monies -- from football, volleyball and basketball gate receipts, concessions, and ASB card sales -- and school district general funds, such as maintenance and operations levy revenues. (Girls soccer supporters raised the money to get that program going this past fall. They'll have to come up with funding for the second year, too, in keeping with the school board's decision to add the sport; after that the district will absorb the program's costs.)

Despite school district efforts to increase revenues and offset costs, there's no way to get around relying on general funds to keep the program operating in the black, Kreps told the board.

More than half of the budget -- approximately $80,000 -- is spent on coaches' salaries. Bus transportation to athletic events is the next-biggest expenditure (about $21,500), followed by equipment ($19,500) and officials ($11,000).

However, some expenditures made during a school year don't even show up on the district's books.

This past summer, Kreps noted, a private donation of $5,400 paid for new home uniforms for CHS's football team. Last spring, a private party contributed $10,000 for the cleaning and repainting of the CHS Stadium track.

Nor does the athletics budget take in to account the upkeep of CHS Stadium, Miller Memorial Gym, Hecomovich Field and CHS's softball and soccer fields -- facilities which also get used at various times of the year by such non-school organizations as White Salmon Community Youth, the Gorge Youth Football League, AYSO and Mt. Adams Babe Ruth.