UPCOMING: Athletic programs forced to ponder hard cuts

All across Okaloosa County, schools have made preparations for the budget cuts expected to come out of Tallahassee in the next few weeks.

In this time of unparalleled budget cuts, every aspect of a school’s operating expenses is being hit.

Athletic programs are not immune to the cuts. Each of the three high school athletic programs in north Okaloosa County will have to deal with the problem to varying degrees.

No school in the area would be hit harder than Crestview High School.

“All ‘annual’ teachers are being non-renewed, which means we are letting them go,” CHS principal Ed Coleman said. “In a high school our size that is six coaching positions that we are going to have to look at filling next year.

“That’s six positions we’ve got to fill. But here’s the kicker: I’m laying teachers off. Everybody is a teacher first, and we want them in a classroom in a certified area.”

The coaching positions of concern to Coleman are boys basketball, girls basketball, track, volleyball, softball and wrestling.

And those are just head coaches. There could be more assistants coaches that are not renewed.

In most cases the teachers not being renewed have been in the Okaloosa County system three years or less and on annual contracts. In case of the Bulldog track and field coach and girls basketball coach, both are on professional contracts, but are the low men on the totem pole in their particular areas of certification.

Both also serve as assistant coaches in other sports.

Things don’t seem as bad at Baker, but principal Tom Shipp is still waiting to see what will happen.

“First of all we have to understand the budget we are working with now is not the real budget,” he said. “The real budget is going to either be a little better or a little worse, but we don’t know for sure. The district went with what they thought would be a logical approach because we needed to establish a budget for next year.

“If we have to live with this budget, we lost nine annual contract employees based on that. In that nine we had several that are doing a variety of things that included coaching responsibilities. So we have one head coach (volleyball) that would be affected if we have to live with these cuts and two assistant coaches.”

Laurel Hill isn’t immune from the budget cuts, but the small Hobo athletic program won’t lose any coaches. Laurel Hill fields volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball, and has just three head coaches that juggle the different sports.

“With the cuts we’ve had it hasn’t affected our sports programs because we are a small staff,” LHS principal Susan Lowrey-Sexton said.

“They (the coaches) are on continuing (professional) contracts and the cuts aren’t in those area.

“Each one of our coaches either teaches PE or a health class, or something like that, to make our master schedule work. By the time we get them in the PE and all the other classes they have a full teaching schedule, too.”

Laurel Hill athletic director Kent Zessin said the Hobo coaching staff is about as small as it can get.

“We are at a bare minimum anyway,” he said. “There are three head coaches and three assistants on staff that run the programs.”

The thing that is likely to hurt Laurel Hill isn’t coming from the Okaloosa County School District, but rather the Florida High School Athletic Association.

Last week the FHSAA voted a 20 percent schedule reduction for varsity sports other than football, meaning the Hoboes would lose five games from their basketball schedule.

“We count on those (boys basketball games) to run the sports programs because all the programs are self-supporting with the exception of the supplement of the coaches,” he said. “If we don’t raise money that way (through basketball gates and concessions) to run the program then our children potentially might have to do more fund raising, which we really don’t want to do in these tough economic times.”

As Zessin pointed out, the only county money that goes to an athletic program are the pay supplements to the individual coaches, which is $2,500 a year.

“When you look at supplements and the amount of time you put in they (the coaches) end up making about 25 cents an hour,” Shipp said. “So the supplement is of minimal importance.”

Coaches aren’t the only teachers who receive supplements, nor are they the only ones battling tight budgets.

“A huge issue as far as any program is funding,” Coleman said. “They are all self-funding. The only money that a school site spends on athletics is for the supplement for that person. When I say athletics I’m (also) talking assistant band director, our choral director and drama.

“There are supplements for those, but that’s our only expenditure. I don’t pay for the buses to go somewhere or for new uniforms. They do that off ticket sales, concessions and fund raisers.”

Coleman and Shipp are trying to remain optimistic throughout these tough times. Both principals are hoping that when they get a final budget they will be able to bring back not only the teachers/coaches, but other teachers as well.

Read the full story in the May edition of the Crestview News Bulletin