Stop Screwing Over Hockey!

We ran into this issue here in Wonderland...Sun Prairie USA.
But the problem is a global one.
Oh....you want to know what the problem is?
It's that kids playing hockey get screwed all over this state...and probably nationwide.

What the majority of districts tend to do...and perhaps more so for smaller districts with less revenue, is that they gouge kids playing hockey by raising the athletic fee for hockey (or assessing a surcharge).
What Athletics Director Jim McClowry TRIED to do (we think) was to show that many other schools set their hockey fees so much higher (5 to 10 times) than the average per sport athletic fee. And therefore Sun Prairie should too.  Of course he was also trying to fund additional soccer teams.

We are transforming hockey into an elitist sport.  Only those with lost of money can afford to play.  A kid gets to play baseball or football for about $50-100 (rough average)  but for hockey, the cost can be anywhere from $0 to well over $1,000.  Why?  This is already a costly sport in that things like skates and sticks can get quite pricey.  And if your kid wants to be a goalie...good luck...those pads can cost a fortune.  Sure, football kids need cleats...but skates are far more expensive...and need frequent sharpening.

The fickle fingers of blame will always point to ice time as the culprit.  And that's true...ice time is expensive. But at the same time, we're not operating on a level playing field.


The cost of ice time
Yes, Virginia, ice time is fairly expensive.  For Sun Prairie, the cot of ice time for the Boys Hockey program for 2012-1 was projected to be a little more than $22,000. Yeah...that will cause a few folks to whistle.  Hang on...

What about the cost of other fields/facilities?
....before you get too crazy, ask what it costs to maintain Ashley Field for a year.   Ashley Field is used for...what...8 football games per year plus a few times by soccer, lacrosse, and maybe Sound of Sun Prairie.  Estimates of annual maintenance have been reported to be as high as $80,000 per year.  In November, 2010, the most recent estimate was that is cost $15,800 per year to maintain...JUST THAT ONE FIELD.

What about all those baseball fields and soccer fields and softball fields the taxpayers just built?  How much did they cost to build?  How much do they cot to maintain?   How come we don't hear anyone raising baseball athletic fees because of the cost of field development and maintenance?  Ferris Bueller?  Anyone?

What about the fieldhouse?  Nice gymnasium!  How much does it cost to heat/cool on game nights?  To cleanup?  Security?  Why is that not factored into baseball athletic fees?

Put away your arguments that we can't afford to build an ice rink with every high school.  We get it.  But it's the cost of education...right?  Jut because we have to purchase ice time, we shouldn't penalize a group of kids.  If you're going to say "No" to ice time, then maybe you should say "No" to a pool....to sports fields...to a basketball court.   Maybe we should can all the athletics and just focus on education.   While a few might agree with that concept, that's not going to happen...nor should it.  But we have to treat all sports equitably.

Budgeting differences
The one valuable piece of information we obtained on July 30th from Mr. McClowry was that the cost for ice time has to come out of Mr. McClowry's athletics budget.  Yet the cost of maintenance of any other field or facility is covered under the General fund.  Is that how every other district does things?  If so, no wonder why hockey costs so much.

Facility Use Fees
Perhaps if we actually CHARGED every sport that operated a "camp" in or on school facilities/fields, me wight be able to lessen the blow of ice time.

Don't we WANT kids to participate in athletics?
Jim McClowry has shown some great data that indicates that students participating in athletics get better grades.  They also become more connected and learn life lessons in teamwork and sportsmanship.   Some kids just naturally enjoy hockey as "their" sport...THEIR vehicle to connectedness and the rewards of athletics participation.  So why are we penalizing these kids for their choice?  If we raise the fee, participation is going to shrink...right?   Why would we do that?

Golf too
Sadly, the kids that play golf go through the same thing.  For them it greens fees.  The bottom line here is that, like ice time, paying for greens fees is no different than paying for field maintenance or utilities and depreciation on indoor facilities.

Support a ban on penalty shots

We don't mean the normal penalty shots occurring as part of a hockey game.
We're talking about the penalty shot leveled at the hockey program.

This past June we learned that Athletics Director Jim McClowry's operational budget was increasing by $32,679.
He had a plan to recoup that increased cost by changing the fee structure.
Instead of all sport fees being $50 (hockey assessed $200), he proposed a 4 tier structure with participation fees of $65, $75, and $85.  The 4th tier was reserved for hockey at a whopping fee of $550 (275% increase).

The $550 plan
Now mind you, if we look at all sport participants, that number is 1,043.
Of that 1,043 kids, only 30 play hockey (21 boys, 9 girls).
The total sum of the increased fees was $33,052.
Of that figure, at $550,  per kid, hockey was covering 32% of the operations budget increase.
That's right...2.9% of the kids (parents) were penalized into covering 32% of the operational budget increase.  We didn't hear anything about hockey costs actually being 32% of the budget increase...just that McClowry was levying a penalty shot to the hockey program.  Way to kill a sport, Jimbo!

Regrouping: The $375 plan
We suspect the district (and McClowry) received a helluva backlash, so on July 23rd, we heard that the district quietly had dropped the hockey fees from $550 to $375.  A nice gesture, but still a 188% increase.  Yes sports like football, baseball, basketball and soccer, are seeing a 170% increase, but the difference here is that those kids are seeing a DOLLAR INCREASE of only $35, vs. the $175 clam smacker laid on hockey parents.  Strike ONE!

Under this revised scenario, hockey kids (that 2.9% of all athletes) are still paying for about 16% of the total athletics budget cost increase.  Strike TWO!

Strike 3...you're OUT!
Here's the biggest secret the district and McClowry don't want you to know.  The numbers are out there, but they fervently hope that YOU don't put two and two together.


McClowry likes to highlight the cost of ice time....$22,200 according to his own budget numbers as the rationale for firing a penalty shot at hockey kids.  He likes to emphasize that no one else benefits from the ice time charges.


We have a response to that.  Do you know how much it costs annually to maintain and prepare the district's MANY fields?  They can't even tell you!  But what we DO know is data on what it takes to maintain just ONE field...Ashley field....used by ...what?  Football 5-6 games a year, a little for baseball?  Some Sound of Sun Prairie?  A couple of lacrosse games a year?


If we wanted to cherry pick, like Mr. McClowry, we'd use the figure David Stackhouse tossed out--and it held for many years-- $60,000 per year!!!!  That would mean that the cost of maintaining Ashley field is nearly triple the cost of ice time for hockey.  Now...we'd rather bring you real, unfiltered data instead of cherry picking.  Two years back the district determined that the ACTUAL cost to maintain JUST Ashley field, is about $16,000 per year.  (Of course that figure hasn't been widely publicized because Stackhouse's intent behind the $60,000/yr figure was a 10-yr savings of $600K...which he felt the district should contribute to turf for Ashley.  At only $15K/yr, the district "contribution: shrinks to only $150K.)


...and field maintenance is covered out of the general fund...NOT the Athletics operations budget.
...so why is ice time not covered b y the general fund?
...or greens fees?


The cost of maintaining Ashley field ALONE amounts to about 72% of the cost of ice time.
So why are we essentially charging hockey kids for the cost of their "field" when we don't charge other kids for their sport "fields"?


What is the solution?
The school board needs to take the cost of ice time (hockey) and greens fees (golf) out of the athletics operations budget.  The cost of fields and field maintenance is not covered there.  For hockey and golf, those ARE their "fields".


The school district paid about $1.4M for an incredible gymnasium that serves most sports...bit not hockey or golf.  $8.8M was spent on "site work", including the development of Summit fields, the new track, and all those other beautiful fields.  Hockey and golf got zip.  Even the arts program got over $500K for a fly loft.  We built a greenhouse, and added $75,000 towards a concert grand piano.  Hockey and golf?  Nothing.


It's time to make the athletics program equitable.  We need to cover ice time and greens fees under the general fund.
We also need to re-set the hockey fees back to the 3-tier system.  Put it on the highest rung...but charge no more than for any other sport for which the district cannot even begin to tell you the "operational cost" of their fields.  We know Ashley field costs alone are just a bit less than ice time for hockey.


Re-set hockey fees at $85.
Transfer excess athletic program fee revenue to the general fund.
The net "cost" to the district is $8,327.
In a $73M budget, that is peanuts...about 1/100 of a % (0.01%)

Halfway is nice...but not good enough

In a surprise move Monday night, the district office announced during the school board's Finance Committee meeting that it was lowering the hockey fee increase from $350 ($200 => $550) down to $175 ($200=>$375).  From the bewildered looks of school board members in attendance, they had no clue.

Hockey fees reduced from $550 to $375!

Don't get us wrong, the reduction is nice, but it's not good enough. Clearly, the Powers That Be simply cut the fee increase in half.  Where was the data that drove that decision?  It sure looks like they got an earful about the increase and decided that cutting it 50% would make the issue go away.  Maybe for some...but not for us!  We need to stop pulling this crap out of our butts and start making sound, defensible, data-driven decisions.

We learned that the Athletics budget was re-instated from 90% to 100%. So that means Mr. McClowry will have more money (and thus need to lean less on hockey people).  What has NEVER been presented is the dollar amount represented by  10% of the athletic budget.  IT seems that the district is telling us that the cost of adding freshman boys and girls soccer plus $175 fee increase for hockey players adds up to 10% of the Athletic budget.  Sorry...we're not buying it.  This $175 reduction was clearly pulled out of somebody's....well...you get the idea.

We say that the hockey fees  MUST go back to $200 until such time as the district can deliver a complete accounting of revenues and expenses for ALL sports.  And that means the cost of field maintenance, transportation, uniforms and everything else.  Then the board needs to establish a clear policy that underscores the extent to which costs are to be recouped via fees.

For example...
let's say football "costs" a total of $100,000 per year
...and total revenues (gate receipts, WIAA reimbursements, etc.) total $50,000.
That means the net "cost" to the district/taxpayers is $50,000.
Then, let's say the board's policy is that fees must be assessed to recoup at least 25% of net costs incurred.
That would mean that football athletic fees must be set at a rate which will amount to $12,500.
Then...if we have 100 kids going out for football (we can use the prior year's real data), then $12,500 ÷ 100 = an athletic fee of $125.00

It's not that difficult people!  We need to change the way we do business.

What we find most interesting is that when the board voted to allow the fee increase it took mere hours to change the fees on the web site.  Now...fully 48 hours later, the website shows hockey fees at $550.  Hmmmm...Mr. McClowry isn't so quick when he doesn't get his way, is he?

What if you trust but cannot verify?

We won't necessarily call "bullshit" (remember that old card game?)...but we did a little independent verification of the hockey fee information presented by Athletics Director Jim McClowry, and it doesn't pass the smell test.

This is why we need to (A) see the data and (B) know the source of the data before making any decision.  In the absence of tangible corroborating data, any vote to support should be  a resounding "NO".  In the old exhibitionist's game of chicken, we'll show him ours if he'll show us his!  And because our source is student and athletics fee information largely published in 2011-12 student handbooks, a student could certainly make a strong argument that (if the school district was trying to charge more), just like when shopping, if the price tag says "X", the store cannot charge "Y" without evidence to support fraud.

Based on the Situation report for June 11th, McClowry indicated:

"...the fee for participating in hockey is planned to increase 275% from $200 per year to $550 per year. This would bring the SP Hockey fee into line with other districts in the conference, which range from $450 to $800 and last year averaged $644."

No matter how we twisted the data, we could not come up with an average hockey fee cost for the Big 8 of $644.  Now...the only fee we could not find was the fee for Middleton girls hockey.  All available information indicates that the cost for hockey is $172, ("...except for girls").

The highest average we could come up with was $588, when we used the increased SPASD fee and counted the three Madison schools individually rather than as a single district.

Perhaps more to the point, what we did not hear was how Sun Prairie's proposed fees compared to the 20 districts similar in enrollment size.  Here, we found that our previous fee ($200) was actually higher than the mean!  In fact, only 4 of 19 districts for which we found hockey fee data had higher fees.
Hmmmm.

What's the Sequel to "Trust But Verify"?
The phrase "trust but verify" originated from ex-President Ronald Reagan.  I think everyone understands that it means that we can take things on face value initially, but that we should verify the information  before acting upon it.   We think the corollary should be:  ...and if you cannot verify the data, no longer trust the source.

Oh, Jim.....

If Dr. Culver wonders why a large portion of the community has lost trust in the school district, this is only a single clear example (there are many others).  A verbal only report was presented to support a significant increase in fees for ONE sport.  If anyone were to do even a cursory analysis on their own, they would quickly find that the information presented by Mr. McClowry was cherry-picked at best.

Now that it's clear that his data cannot be verified....what should the consequences be?
....you know...to intervene and promote more positive behaviors.

Whatever happened to the athletic fee issue?

We very clearly heard the school board vote to bring the athletic fee increase issue forward to the June 25th 2012 meeting of the Finance Committee.  It says so in the minutes from the June 11th school board meeting. But it does NOT appear on the agenda for this Monday's (June 25) Finance Committee meeting.

What gives?

Once gain, a vote is taken to do something, there is no follow through, and nothing to tell the public what happened.

We see that Mr. McClowry has already raised the athletic fees on the school district website (gee...how come the school district can move so quickly on SOME things?).

Has the issue been quietly put to death (as Mr. Welke feared)?

Hockey players hit with 275% fee increase

subtitle: Are hockey players supporting freshman soccer moms?
subtitle: Hockey fee increases needed to offset cost of adding freshman soccer program

Anyway you slice it folks, this seems wrong. Does hockey cost more due to the cost of ice time?  Absolutely.  Should there be a supplemental fee for hockey to help defray ice time cost? absolutely.  Is a 275% fee increase in one year acceptable?  Absolutely NOT!

Regardless, 4 school board members voted to accept the new fees.  There were allusions to the potential that the issue may be revisited when the athletic budget is brought to the Finance Committee in a few weeks.  Board VP John Welke, however, expressed concern that the board tends to let these things die once set.  We agree. In fact, Athletics Director Jim McClowry is so sure the fees will stand that he's already had the website updated to reflect the change.  That's moving fast, people...for a district office that plods worse than a tortoise on many more important issues.

Here are our problems with what happened, in no specific order.

No phased in approach.  We knew hockey cost a lot.  We've know for years.  So why hasn't the fee ratcheted up $50/yr each year?  Why isn't this increase from $200 to $550 spread over say three years?  Why suddenly are we all worked up to do something about "equity" NOW?

Dammit Jim, you're not making sense.  First you say that you're under budget constraints because the district office cut your budget (and all department budgets) by 10%.  Then you tell us that you're adding freshman boys and girls soccer next year.  Well...how can you be adding two new sports programs without new funding and in the face of a 10% budget cut?  That makes no sense.  Oh...THEN you tell us you want to raise all athletic fees and raise hockey, in particular, 275% (a $350 per student per year increase).

Champion cherry pickers.    As usual coming from the district, a little research indicates that the information on other program hockey fees looks to be cherry picked to make your case.  Yes...some schools (Madison) charge $800 for hockey.   But there are many other schools that charge a flat rate.  This district likes to present only the facts that support their position...not all the facts.  Whatever happened to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?


Funky math softens the blow.  Is it a 275% increase?  Or just a $175% increase.  It depends on the math you use, of course!  $550 ÷ $200 × 100 = 275%.   But...if we just look at the increase itself ($550 - $200 = $350) relative to the current fee ($200), then the "increase" is only $350 ÷ $200 × 100= 175%.  These are twicky wabbits, people.  The INCREASE is 175%, but the FEE is being raised 175%.   This is a classic budget ploy used by the district as well.

It's still apples and oranges.  Yes, ice time is expensive.  But which other sports include the cost of field maintenance.  We've heard the district tout that Ashley Field costs $60,000 per year to maintain.  And what sports play on that?  Football for 5-6 games a year? Even with a varsity roster of 70 something kids, that's about $900/year.  Do we charge football for that?  What about the cost of re-conditioning or replacing football helmets?   That's not cheap. Yet hockey kids supply their own...right?  And their own pads?  Does football?

Why is swimming charged the (new) base athletic fee rate of $65?  Isn't swimming the only sport to use the pool, with its very expensive maintenance costs?  Many schools use a tiered fee structure, but the schools we reviewed....those similar in size to Sun Prairie...had a maximum ratio of hockey: base sport fee of about 3 or 4:1.  These schools charge $100-125 as a base fee and then hockey gets charged about $400-$500.  In our case, the hockey fee will be 8 1/2 times the fee charged for swimming.  Hockey ($550)is being charged 6 1/2 times the fee charged for football, basketball and baseball ($85).  Really?  Football is only $10 more than golf?

It seems to us that ALL fees should be raised to at least $100 and then set a hockey fee at $250 with a programmed increase of $50/year till it hits $400.  Alternatively, we need a complete analysis of costs per sport and assess fees appropriately.  Hockey isn't cheap...but neither is football.  And that's not what the new price structure reflects.

Who ordered the 10% budget cuts?

Last night's (6-11-12) school board meeting was an eye opener on many levels.  We have so much to share.  But the big revelation came from Athletic Director Jim McClowry.  McClowry was trying to rationalize his plan to raise hockey fees by 275% (from $200/per athlete to $550) by presenting a chaotic jumble of numbers and percentages.  It was incredibly difficult to follow McClowry through all of his, "Wait...let me back up a bit..."s.  But that may have been all part of the plan...you know...remain purposefully obtuse when discussing anything budgetary in public.  But then, when explaining why he needed to raise hockey fees by 275%, McClowry let it slip (?) that his--and all departments'--- budget had been cut by 10% per Business Manager Phil Frei.  Of course, there was also the interesting piece that board VP John Welke coaxed out of McClowry that McClowry also needed money to cover his plans to add freshmen boys and girls soccer teams next spring.  Hmmm...was the added cost put on the hockey folks' shoulders to cover the 10% budget gap?  Or was it to pay for two new soccer teams???  More on that to come.  For now...let's get back to the 10% budget cut.

The school board was unaware of and did not direct administration to reduce budgets by 10%.  So...who ordered the budget cut...and why....and when?

After this revelation started igniting, Dr. Culver stepped in and clarified that it was not a 10% budget cut....but rather...that he and Frei had directed all administrators to only spend up to 90% of their budgets in order to keep the tax levy increase under 2.5%.

REALLY!  So limiting spending to 90% does not equal a 10% budget cut?  If THAT is not being purposefully obtuse, what is?

Why did Culver initiate a ...sorry, Tim...10% cut for all departments without consulting the schools board?  When were they going to be told?

THIS is what happens when you keep the budget behind Oz' curtain until July 30th.  C'mon, people...this is not transparency.  It's what gives the school district and school board a bad rap.  When are we going to find four board members willing to say, "ENOUGH!"?

Stay tuned, we have more questions than we have answers.  Meanwhile, we suspect someone has been summoned to the woodshed.