Lodi Unified School District sports finish last in funding

Aug. 23--Stay late enough, or show up early enough to a sporting event and spectators realize Lodi Unified School District high schools do things a little differently.

Students often don't file on and off buses. Instead, it's usually mom and dad's vehicle or athletes providing their own transportation.

And although several coaches put in time to make a team happen, sometimes it's only the head coach who's getting paid. The rest of the assistant coaches are splitting a small stipend or volunteering thanks to some rough economic times.

Around the turn of the decade, budget cuts made athletic departments from schools like Lodi and Tokay become largely self-sustaining. A dip in enrollment and in funds meant cuts needed to be made. Educators desperately lobbied their importance in hopes of sparing jobs.

In the end, just about every department suffered at some level. LUSD athletics lost coaching stipends and tens of thousands of dollars in transportation money. It's a blow that looks to have Lodi Unified's high schools the only ones in their leagues that don't receive athletic transportation funding from their district.

Administrators like Lodi High Athletic Director Erin Aitken have fought to spare sports since the cuts began. She has written letters to the district, inquiring last winter if some money might make its way back. Aitken is in her sixth year in charge and remembers early on getting close to $60,000 for transportation costs.

"(Because of athletic cuts) we didn't have to fire this teacher and that teacher," Aitken said. "I understand that. But at the same time, I see what athletics do and how they contribute to students and the community."

It's people like Aitken who hope for change because it appears the district's budget picture is improving.

Last year's $230 million budget was the highest since 2007 and this year's budget is just above that.

Already, some other areas of education have felt the increase.

The district was able to restore fifth and sixth grade band at 13 schools, with money for 600 new instruments and three new music teachers. Teacher and staff salaries have been restored ($7,345,050) to the level prior to employee cuts. An additional $1,538,630 will go to increase pension costs for this year and that will continue to climb. Even summer school, which was ditched in 2009, was brought back.

The same year summer school was dropped, athletic transportation funding for LUSD schools went from $32,000 to $16,000 and was eliminated soon after. Two years later, a 10 percent trim to athletics was sought. Seven coaching stipends, between $2,000-3,000 each, disappeared as did freshman baseball.

On the transportation side of things, this led to a new way of life. Teams began having to use gate money to pay for travel, if it was a sport with the luxury of a profit. Another option was to pay for travel by hosting various fundraisers. The other option was to look for parents to carpool or have the athletes drive themselves. To be able to be a parent driver, waivers must be filled out with proof of license and insurance.

From there, coaches are responsible for making sure their players are traveling properly, a task Tokay softball coach Robert Harmon says is increasingly difficult. He did once catch a player riding with someone who was not approved and had to remind them of the protocol.

"I think the district is dodging a bullet every time it sends out a team," Harmon said. "It's almost impossible to monitor the number of kids who get in the car."

Louis Franklin, athletic director at Tokay, says there have been instances where teams have wanted to play Tokay and he's had to tell them they are too far away. A bus trip for a football team can cost $400-$500 for a trip to Stockton. If the bus has to go back and make multiple trips for freshman-sophomore and freshman teams, it's closer to $600.

Tracy High athletic director Gary Henderson confirmed that Tracy once paid for Tokay's travel costs to get them to come for a football game because he knew the gate would more than cover the travel costs.

Henderson took over in 2010 and says one way Tracy tried to offset travel costs was to ask for a donation from athletes of $150 per sport. It was a practice that Henderson says he questioned with the district in the past but was always given the okay. However, not long after Tracy Unified School District superintendent Brian Stephens took over this year, he called a special meeting with administrators like Henderson and expressed concern over the legality of the practice and says it will be changing.

Lincoln has similarly asked for a participation donation of $75 for its sports. Former Trojans athletic director Joe Schallberger moves to assistant principal this year and says it's a casual request. No records are kept for who pays and who doesn't. Like Henderson, he says he was given permission by the district to ask for the money. In light of Tracy's situation, however, he says the policy may need revisiting.

In Tracy and Lincoln's cases, whatever their donations have not covered, the district makes up the difference. Meanwhile, Stockton Unified schools this year get a set $60,000 each for transportation.

Lodi Unified's athletic directors say they do not ask for participation donations. Aitken is proud to say Lodi hasn't had to cancel a contest because of transportation. She once looked into asking for donations from players to play sports and was told by district administrators that it wasn't something Lodi should do. It is her understanding that it might violate California's "free school" guarantee for public schools.

"If we were allowed to charge a fee, I wouldn't be opposed to it if we could keep it minimal," Aitken said.

Bear Creek and McNair are also Lodi Unified schools and Bruins' athletic director Anthony Sayhoun says only once since transportation funding was eliminated has his school had to cancel a game. It was at the freshman-sophomore baseball level. McNair athletic director Quincy Noble says that last year the Eagles' freshman-sophomore team had to do the same.

"Luckily, we've had a lot of parents step up to the plate," Sayhoun said of parent drivers. "I've seen parents make multiple trips to get kids to track meets and I've even given rides."

Mike and Julie Wutzke's son Anthony is a third-year varsity soccer player for Lodi. The Wutzke's have driven Anthony and his teammates to and from games regularly. Relying on families has become part of life in Lodi, Mike says, citing the private funding that renovated the Grape Bowl and Lodi's soccer field.

Mike is general manager for a local business and his wife a secretary and both have taken off work at times to supply transportation. He says it's always a core of five or six families that do most of the driving. He especially feels for the parents of freshman-sophomore players who play earlier games. They have to leave at 1:30 or 2 p.m. to get kids to games.

For the Wutzke's, the financial burden of serving as a driver isn't a big deal. It's even a good thing in that it gets parents involved in their children's activities. Families get to know each other and who their kids are friends with. At the same time, Mike Wutzke wonders if his son might be missing something by not taking a bus.

"There's a camaraderie to riding the bus and being together as a team," Mike said. "A little bit of that team experience is gone (without busing)."

Former Tokay athletic director Jeff Johnson is now the president for the Lodi Education Association. He has two main concerns with the way Lodi's athletic funding is set up now.

First, track and field teams get three coaching stipends while overseeing close to 100 athletes throughout varsity and freshman-sophomore. Johnson worries that isn't sufficient supervision with potentially dangerous events like discus, shot put and pole vault going on at a practice. Lodi's sport with the most stipends is football, with six spread across varsity, JV and freshman. This is the fewer than Stockton (14), Lincoln (12) and Tracy (10) schools.

Secondly, Johnson worries about potential liability if an accident did occur with a student or parent driving, regardless of what waivers have been signed.

LUSD Superintendent Cathy Washer said she shares some of the above concerns, but that she "worries about liability no matter what it is." She adds that the district prioritizes what it spends money on and that the school board sets those priorities.

"If athletic funding came up as a theme it is something they could look at," Washer said. "When (athletics) was first cut, it was a concern that we heard from people."

Joe Nava is the vice president of the school board for LUSD and spent 25 years working at Stagg High. He was a teacher, a football coach and athletic director who retired in 2005. He recalls Stagg's transportation funding not being a big issue.

Nava supports finding a way to get more money for things like stipends and transportation. He envisions more money for those things in the coming years.

"I know we have some board members who are pro athletics," Nava said. "We have to explore and get a needs assessment from all the high schools and have a budget that is equal."

Board member Ralph Womack was an athlete at Manteca High. He too would like to restore money for athletics, but stopped short of saying it was something that is on the horizon. He echoed Washer's view that it all depends on prioritization. There are all kinds of costs in education outside of athletics that also need a piece of the pie.

"What we're doing is we're looking at all areas and trying to restore where we can," Womack said. "You can say we'll discuss something and someone will think we're going to get that lined up and give passionate, valid points why that is the most important thing.

"If you're child plays sports, it's a high priority."

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