Posted on: Friday, July 18, 2003

Public schools face cuts in budgets

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

Planned budget restrictions imposed by Gov. Linda Lingle's administration at the end of last month could have a profound effect on high school athletics, according to numbers released at a Board of Education meeting last night.

For example, a line item in the Department of Education's list of Operating Budget Allocations for the first quarter of this fiscal year suggests a $545,252 reduction for athletics (salary, supplies and equipment). For O'ahu Interscholastic Association executive secretary Dwight Toyama, that means possibly cutting hundreds of coaching positions or eliminating sports altogether.

"For $500,000, and coaches getting about $1,000 each, that's 500 'lines' that we gotta figure out how to cut," Toyama said. "It's hard to project, but if I had to guess — what would be the most fair — would be to start with (sports) where it's not going to affect everybody."

That would likely mean sports like soft tennis, which is played by only a handful of schools. In order to reach the $500,000 reduction, however, the cutting process eventually could lead to more popular sports, like JV football.

Other proposed line item reductions include $100,760 for transportation and $17,401 for athletic trainers.

Toyama said he won't know exactly how much money he will have available until it is released to him. DOE spokesperson Greg Knudsen said the allocations could not be released until the department factored in the proposed reductions listed in last night's report.

"This is all speculation right now," Toyama said. "Last year I didn't get the money until September. I told our athletic directors, 'Don't panic, but be ready.' We just have to wait and see."

Just before the current fiscal year began on July 1, Lingle announced that all state agencies would be receiving only 80 percent of their first-quarter allocations for the year because of tough economic times.

The public school system is being asked to reduce its budget by $12 million to $20 million. The budget reduction would hit the department hardest in areas that do not directly affect regular or special education classroom learning. Extracurricular activities, including athletics, is one of the areas targeted.

Knudsen said the reductions could be looked at as "withholdings," similar to tax withholdings on paychecks. He said it's possible the state's budget shortfall may not be as severe and some programs could get the money back.

The governor stressed that the reduction of allocations was temporary while awaiting the Council on Revenues' revised cash forecasts in September. But Democratic leaders have called on Lingle to ease the restrictions in the wake of last week's news from the Tax Department that revenues in June had surged to the point that overall growth for fiscal 2003 was up 4.3 percent from the previous year.

Advertiser staff writers Jennifer Hiller and Gordon Pang contributed to this story.