News: Athletics Could Face Deep Cuts in Loudoun

(Mar. 22, 2010) - A year ago athletics in Loudoun County survived the budget process with only the implementation of a $100 fee for each athlete for each sport. This year, however, the stakes have been raised a lot higher as the Board of Supervisors appears intent on slashing nearly $30 million from the school board funding request which could lead to the elimination of freshman sports and junior varsity lacrosse in the county as well as raising the participation fee to as high as $200 or $300 per athlete per sport.

Other athletic items on the potential "cut list" include: assistant athletic directors, assistant athletic trainers, and fewer games for teams due to a 33 percent reduction in travel costs.

The full reduction list can be found here.

The elimination of freshman sports and JV lacrosse saves the county $439,000 but the cuts would be felt much deeper at schools where freshman football and basketball games are big sources of revenues for athletic departments and boosters clubs. As one assistant athletic director said: eliminating freshman football and basketball would be like killing the "Golden Goose".

A big freshman football game can generate as much as $1,000 in revenue for a school and that would be lost if the sport was eliminated.

The school district released the following letter in advance of tonight's final operating budget workshop by the Board of Supervisors.

Dear Colleagues and Patrons of LCPS:

By now you have probably heard that the Board of Supervisors has taken a “straw vote” to reduce LCPS funding for next year by $30 million. To balance that reduction we will have to go to the reductions listed on the “Option #1 Reduction List” that has been distributed with copies of the School Board’s Proposed Operating Budget. The list is also posted on the LCPS website.

Many of you joined in the effort to secure additional State funding by unfreezing the Local Composite Index. This successful effort resulted in more than $34 million in new State funding being made available to LCPS. That amount was trimmed by State reductions in education funding so that our net gain will be about $21 million. Reduced payments to the Virginia Retirement System next year combine with the increased State revenue to reduce the need for local tax funds amounting to $45 million.

I had hoped that such a large reduction in the local transfer of real property taxes for schools would allow the Board of Supervisors to reduce the tax rate or fund other agencies with the $45 million while still fully funding the School Board’s Proposed Budget. School Board members and I, in fact, publicly stated our support for using additional state funds to help other areas of the County budget as long as the Schools Operating budget was fully funded.

Unfortunately majorities of the Supervisors took two more straw votes to reduce an additional $23.9 million for the schools budget as well as unanimously reducing the local transfer to schools by $5.5 million, the cost of the proposed one per cent COLA for all school employees.

On Monday night the Board of Supervisors will hold its final operating budget workshop session. I believe there may have been a genuine misunderstanding of the impacts of these reductions. I hope that they will reconsider the final $23.9 million in reductions and restore those funds to our schools. Making those reductions would affect the employment of 293 LCPS employees and directly affect classroom instruction and opportunities for our students.

The Board of Supervisors continues to welcome budget comments at bos@loudoun.gov.

Sincerely,
Edgar B. Hatrick
Superintendent