McALISTERVILLE — Three-sport athletes at East Juniata or Juniata high schools will have to pay nearly $1,000 to compete in the coming academic year if a pay-to-play proposal is approved by the Juniata County School District.
Athletic directors Rod Hart, of East Juniata, and Jerry Auker, of Juniata, proposed a plan to school directors Tuesday night to have the entire athletic budget funded by athletes and booster clubs. The Juniata County School District voted recently to cut all funding — between $400,000 and $500,000 annually — for athletics to offset a budget crunch born of Gov. Tom Corbett’s $1 billion reduction in education spending.
If approved, parents and booster clubs would pay for everything: Coaches’ salaries, officials, transportation and supplies. Auker and Hart met with boosters and coaches Monday to discuss the plan and presented it to the school board Tuesday.
“It seems to have been received very well,” Hart said Wednesday morning. “If I was a betting man, I would say it’s going to be unanimously approved.”
School directors will meet again Tuesday to vote on the proposal. Hart said the vote is all-encompassing, meaning if the proposal is rejected, no single sport will have funding, even if a specific booster club has the money.
Boosters voiced concern about the lack of time to arrange funding — practice for fall sports is fewer than five weeks away — and questioned whether they have enough time to get the money together to fund a program like football or boys and girls soccer. If the proposal passes and a team cannot raise adequate funding, Hart said the sport will be dissolved.
Athletes would have to pay to participate in each sport, ranging from $350 for football to $200 for all junior high sports and some varsity sports. That means a boy at East Juniata who plays football, basketball and baseball would have to pay $950 ($350 for football, $300 each for basketball and baseball) while a girl would pay as much as $900 for three sports. There are no discounts for additional family members who also play.
The fees would go directly into an account to cover costs for that sport. The rest of money needed to cover other expenses would come from boosters.
Several coaches throughout the district have agreed to return their salaries to the booster clubs. The boosters could also raise revenue by charging for entrance to athletic events, Hart said, noting that all the money would go to the booster club, not the district.
“We’re hoping it works, but there’s no question it’s a huge gamble,” Hart said of the proposal.
If a family can’t afford the fees, the district will work with boosters and area businesses to try to offset the cost, Hart said.
“Everyone in the community is going to have to pull together,” Juniata County School District board member Dan Clark said at Tuesday night’s meeting. “I have faith we can do it, but it’s going to be a lot of hard work.”
East Juniata and Juniata have their own football teams, and East Juniata accepts players from Midd-West, which does not have a squad. Midd-West has paid more than $20,000 a year for the co-op, which, Hart said, will continue with some sort of payment, but maybe in a different form. Midd-West athletic director Bree Solomon was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.
To save money, East Juniata and Juniata will consolidate some programs. Golfers at the two high schools will play for East Juniata, while field hockey and tennis players will compete for Juniata.
Hart is confident the measure will pass, so he is trying to cram a couple of months of work into a few weeks.
“For the past three months, everything’s been on hold,” Hart said. “But now it’s back to business as usual. Now I have three months worth of work and it’s a massive catch-up.”
— Email comments to bbowman@dailyitem.com
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