Tuesday, July 24, 2012

cost-cutting

Next time you hear someone spouting off about cutting funds to some government-funded arts of information organization, tell them you'll agree to that proposition, but only if they will agree that more popular funded things, such as high school athletic teams, should also be defunded.
Could high school football cover all its own costs without the massive tax-payer funding? This includes such things as coaches (who often barely teach yet receive a much higher salary than ordinary teachers), sports-dedicated buildings, sports equipment, sports clothing, travel to sporting events, insurance to cover sports mishaps, extra utilities spent on sporting activities which occur beyond the usual school day, and the maintenance to cover all this extra wear and tear. I'm sure I forgetting something here, but how much money does this add up to? Millions? Billions, quite likely, possibly more.
Perhaps, there needs to be a rule stating that any given sport can only receive up to a certain percentage of the fund total given to a school (similar to the Texas rule restricting educational administration to 20 percent of the budget). Or better, separate the educational part of the budget from the athletic part, so that it is made quite clear just how much is being spent on sports.

I've got nothing against sports, it just seems to me that in an age when we're slashing costs to anything that strikes the pay-as-you-go crowd as "unnecessary", that sports isnt even mentioned as a possibility.

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