Public schools brace
for state budget cuts
The state's public school athletic administrators are bracing for a potentially lean year in the wake of last week's report that the Department of Education has been told to prepare for possible budget cuts ranging from $12 million to $20 million for the next school year.
"How that will impact us I cannot say right now," Oahu Interscholastic Association executive secretary Dwight Toyama said yesterday. "We have to wait and see, but it will definitely have some impact. It could be minimal or ... a $20 million cut to the department would probably wipe us out."
Toyama is in charge of setting the budget for the state's four public-school leagues and said he doesn't know when he'll find out how much funding athletics will receive. He said he received the state's athletics allotment by July 1 in past years. Last year, the numbers didn't come in until September.
"Every year we've seen the budget decrease, so we're prepared to make some kind of adjustment," he said. "But we won't know until we see some kind of budget."
Toyama said it's too early to speculate on the possible ramifications of new budget cuts, but in the worst-case scenario public school athletics could be in jeopardy.
"The public school budgets have been cut to the bone over the past several years, so any further cuts would be devastating to their athletic budgets," said Keith Amemiya, executive director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association.
"At a time when there's increasing concern about drug prevention, particularly with regard to the crystal meth crisis, this would be the worst possible time to cut co-curricular activities such as athletics."
Complicating matters further for Toyama is the fact that the money may be distributed incrementally rather than in a lump sum prior to the school year.
"If that happens, it's going to be even more difficult and it's going to be hard to plan for the spring sports," Toyama said. "I'm just telling the (athletic directors) to be prepared and just hang in there."
Toyama said the financial uncertainty fueled the OIA's concerns over the Division II state football tournament.
He pointed out that state tournament travel is not covered by the funds distributed to the public schools, meaning athletic programs must find the money to send teams to the tournaments on their own. He said one program is still trying to pay off $30,000 in expenses incurred last school year.
In addition to football, the HHSAA is adding Division II tournaments in girls basketball and softball next year.
"We're not opposed to (classification)," Toyama said. "But you're adding more games, more playoffs, more teams traveling. The costs are going up and the budget is going down. That's the concern we had and what we tried to point out.
"Public schools have to fund-raise to get to (state tournaments) and a lot of schools are just trying to survive the regular season."
Amemiya has said he will personally cover any losses that result from the Division II football tournament. He is also donating $20,000 toward travel expenses for the softball and girls basketball tournaments.
The HHSAA is covering the teams' expenses in the state tournaments and the revenues from the two tournaments will be distributed among the leagues. Toyama said the OIA has seen a drop in its share of the state tournament profits over the past four years. He said that money is distributed among the league's 22 schools to help cover transportation costs.
"We were never against classification," Toyama said. "Our concern was if we can afford to move multiple teams across the ocean on multiple weekends.
"If it's successful great, if not we have to rethink it. A lot depends on what happens in the next few weeks."