Springfield panel approves budget

SPRINGFIELD — It took four meetings, but the Springfield School District’s budget committee on Tuesday finally approved Superintendent Nancy Golden’s proposed 2011-12 budget — and, in the process, probably saved some high school sports and avoided raising participation fees to play them.

In a 6-3 vote, the committee voted to use $109,000 from the district’s $1.65 million emergency contingency fund to balance the 2011-12 budget. They chose that over several other options under consideration, such as increasing participation fees by $50 to $200 for major sports such as football, basketball and baseball; eliminating district-provided transportation to athletic competitions; and charging students $50 to participate in activities such as band, choir and drama.

Those options were all proposed after the budget committee last week took off the table a controversial proposal to eliminate funding for some high school sports — such as soccer, swimming and wrestling — and relegating them to self-supporting “club sport” status. Many athletes and their parents showed up in force at the first three budget committee meetings to protest that proposal.

Although only a tiny piece of the district’s $8.3 million budget shortfall for 2011-12, the prospect of cutting sports and activities and raising fees to participate in them struck an emotional chord with many.

“I feel saved,” Springfield High School freshman Carlos Hunnicutt, a member of the school’s swimming team, said after Tuesday’s meeting at the district’s Administration Center.

“I feel like it was the right thing to do and it was very smart,” Hunnicutt said of the committee’s decision to use contingency funds instead of cutting some sports’ funding or raising fees.

The outcry over the possible sports eliminations first surfaced May 26 when Golden’s proposed budget included $300,000 in “curricular” reductions, including the roughly $100,000 in savings that would have been realized by eliminating funding for cross country, boys and girls soccer and swimming at both Springfield and Thurston High schools, as well as wrestling at Springfield High and co-ed cheer at Thurston High.

Most of the rest of the options from that initial $300,000 proposal will still be realized, including reducing by 10 percent stipends for coaches, athletic directors and activity directors. About $20,000 of the savings will come by ending offerings at Springfield Middle School, which will see its last day of operation today; it is one of four schools closing permanently to help balance the budget.

The budget committee’s decision Tuesday came with some fireworks, as school board and budget committee members Laurie Adams and Al King squared off on how the vote went down.

King, along with board and budget committee member Nancy Bigley and budget committee chairman John Svoboda, voted against Adams’ motion to adopt the proposed budget by using the $109,000 in contingency funds. Longtime board member Adams made her motion at the beginning of the meeting, before public comment could be taken.

King thought that was bad form and later tried to make another motion, claiming Adams’ original motion only called for using the contingency funds, and not for approving the proposed budget.

King’s complaint caused some confusion over the specifics of Adams’ motion, which resulted in her asking Business Operations Director Brett Yancey to run back the meeting’s recording. After a 10-minute break, Yancey played the recording, which confirmed that Adams had indeed made a motion to approve the budget, as well as use the $109,000 in contingency funds as the final piece.

“We’ve spent a lot of time on this,” Adams said. “I guess my feeling was we could sit and haggle on this all night.”

Rather than take money from the contingency fund, King had favored realizing part of the needed savings by eliminating district funding for return trips from athletic events, and increasing athletic participation fees by $25 per sport.

Because the district is under a school board mandate to finish every fiscal year with reserve funds matching 4 percent of its general fund operating budget, the $109,000 used in 2011-12 would have to be found elsewhere by June 30, 2012, Yancey said. The largest chunk in closing the 2011-12 budget gap will come from $5 million in staff reductions and employee concessions.