District debates donor funds for C Teams

Should private donors be allowed to fund the sports C Teams that Shoreline School District officials cut this year?

That question prompted debate at the Shoreline School Board’s Monday, Feb. 25, meeting. District staff had decided that donations be rejected, but board member Mike Jacobs argued against that.

Officials cut the teams in August to help fill a budget gap. At the high schools, C Teams in boys and girls soccer, boys baseball and a Shorecrest girls tennis team were cut.

Questions from parents about private donations prompted Monday’s discussion. There’s been no offer of money, but there have been inquiries, said Don Dalziel, district athletic director. He got two or three e-mails asking if the district accepted donations, he said.

At the Monday meeting, Brian Schultz, executive director of secondary education, said that district officials recommended private donations not be accepted for C Teams. The teams should be suspended until the district becomes fiscally stable, he said. The district has made cuts in recent years to try to dig itself out of a budget hole.

Jacobs answered that he wanted to be able to vote on the matter, rather than being told that administrators had decided it.

“If we have people who wish to donate funds to C Teams, why shouldn’t we talk to them?” he said. “I’m not saying we should be using those funds to support this, but we should be talking about it.”

Superintendent Sue Walker said that other parts of the athletic program may be at risk, depending on what happens in the state Legislature this session.

“Some of us are pretty worried if we can sustain our athletic programs (even) without C teams,” she said.

Specifically, officials are worried about cost of living increases, or COLAs, for staff.

Jacobs said, in response, that he didn’t think the district should use its own money for C teams, but wanted to keep the door open to private donations.

Walker said that the district didn’t have a development office to solicit and manage donations, as universities do.

“We don’t have time to do that,” she said. “We can bring that conversation forward, but…”

Board president Debi Ehrlichman said it’s a problem if parents support teams for a few years and then stop, leaving the district to carry it on or cut it, she said.

“It’s like someone coming forth with money for a certain teacher, a certain grade,” she said.

Last year, the board voted against a private donation to fund a teacher at Highland Terrace Elementary.

Jacobs said that since private money had been used to fund C teams before, it should be able to be used again.

Parent money has been used to fund C teams in the past.

For years, the district has offered freshmen teams in football, basketball and volleyball.

In 1999, parents asked why it didn’t expand C teams to other sports.

After a long process, it was decided that since the district didn’t have the money for the teams, the community could fund them for spring of 2000.

Parents raised $13,000 for six teams: boys soccer and baseball and girls fastpitch.

That spring, the district had $800,000 in discretionary money to be given to new programs.

So starting with the 2000-01 school year, C teams were funded by the district.

On Monday night, it was decided that the board would discuss donations for C Teams at an upcoming Committee of the Whole meeting.

At the meeting, Schultz also gave a history of how and why C Teams were cut.

The district’s general fund, which was paying for C teams, is trying to get back to fiscal health after the crises of recent years.

In the past two years, the district has cut teaching positions, closed schools and made other dramatic cuts to regain its balance financially.

Through it all, athletics has stayed relatively unscathed.

“Over the last few years we have made $7 million in cuts,” Schultz said. “The C Team was the first cut to athletics.”

Also, few schools in the Wesco South sports division offer C teams. That means that Shoreline’s C teams have had to travel greater and greater distances, Schultz said.

Officials say that the cost of transportation and fuel has gone up, resulting in greater costs for the teams.

The district doesn’t have a figure for how much money cutting the C Teams is supposed to save. They’re working on a figure, Dalziel said.

Salaries save about $35,000, but that doesn’t include benefits, transportation and driver costs, official’s fees, equipment and uniforms, Dalziel said.