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AL: AHSAA shows how it can be done

03-Feb-2011  MontgomeryAdvertiser.com, Montgomery, AL

As school officials continue to search for ways to trim already thin budgets, there is one area that so far has escaped -- if not the scalpel, certainly the chain saw.  Sports.

While public school athletic budgets have been trimmed down, no one has threatened to shut down athletic programs or drastically cut their funding.  Yet.

But rest assured, it's coming. Especially in Montgomery, where, in less than a year, Montgomery Public Schools will absorb all of the city's junior high school athletic programs -- a cost that until now has been covered by the city's parks and recreation department.

"We're going to have to make some very tough decisions in coming months," school board President Charlotte Meadows said. "We're looking at a certain shortfall of more than $6 million, and if we have proration, it's at over $10 million. We're going to have to make other cuts. We're going to talk about athletics -- it will come up. Everything will come up."

One of the first places the Montgomery school board -- and other school boards across the state -- should look is at the relationship public schools have with the Alabama High School Athletic Association, a private entity that handles all post-season events for high school sports in the state.

As many schools crumble and face bulldozing, the AHSAA continues to do quite well.

With a year's operating expense in the budget and no cuts to its staff of 14, the AHSAA raked in more than $3 million last year. It enjoys a nice, new office building located just off Taylor Road and paid for in just a few years thanks to shrewd planning. And it has never been more profitable.

Basically, and I can't believe I'm saying this, school systems could use the AHSAA as an example of how to do business. From its revenue-generating ideas to its cost-cutting measures to its strict financial policies, the AHSAA has been a model lately of how to do good business.

Last year, the AHSAA dished out more than $1.2 million to member schools, at least doubled the payouts to teams participating in most post-season events -- and in some cases, tripled the payouts -- and waived its dues for all schools for the 18th straight year. And they did it all during one of the worst economic recessions in history, when businesses are ultra reluctant to part with sponsorship dollars and fans are cutting back on how much they spend at events.

"I don't think there's any doubt that we've saved schools money and made them money by the way we've done business," AHSAA executive director Steve Savarese said. "We've been very careful with the way we've gone about things and every contract we've entered into we felt like was the best possible deal for our member schools. We are in the service business."

Over the last few years, the AHSAA has evaluated almost everything it does, cut out the unnecessary, and often costly, parts and improved the money-generating parts. It managed both goals recently by renegotiating expiring contracts for its football and basketball finals. It also signed a TV deal worth $50,000 for the football finals and worked with businesses to provide support for other tournaments.

Basically, the AHSAA found meaningful, creative ways to raise revenue and cut expenses.

There's no reason our schools can't do the same.

Whether it be donations or fundraisers or corporate partnerships or sponsorships, there are more options out there for raising revenue than by waiting on a bump in sales taxes. School districts across the country have started selling advertising spots on school buses and partnering with corporations on a variety of money-making deals. They're finding creative ways to tackle daunting problems.

Like the AHSAA has done, those school systems are evaluating where to cut and where to raise revenue. And while things aren't perfect, they're much better off.

Josh Moon's "Just Saying" appears each Sunday and Thursday. He can be reached by e-mail at jmoon@gannett.com.

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