www.fox11online.com Thursday, 21 Jul 2011 Reporter: Ben Krumholz
MENOMINEE, Mich. - Facing a $2 million budget deficit, the Menominee, Mich., School District has reduced costs in many areas. With about a $700,000 hole remaining, many freshman athletic programs are on the chopping block, including football, basketball and volleyball.
“Our board of education believes our core business is academics and so everything we tried to do back with the budget this year was to keep those cuts as far away from our academic programs as we possibly could,” said superintendent Erik Bergh.
The district's budget woes are similar to others throughout Michigan. Bergh says state funding usually reserved for kindergarten through 12th grade schools is now being shared with higher education.
“I fully believe that the solutions to the problems that we face, we shouldn't be looking at state government to solve those issues for us,” said Bergh.
Bergh believes the community is part of the solution. With some help from general funds, school officials believe fundraising can offset $50,000 in cuts to the district's sports programs.
School officials say in the coming days, the fundraising should be in place to save at least the freshman sports for this fall. From there, officials will address the other freshman sports in danger of being eliminated.
“If you ask me right now, I'd say we have a 99 percent chance that we'll have all the freshman sports this fall, because we think we can secure that funding,” said athletic director Dale Van Duinen.
While school officials are confident the programs will be saved this year, they say they need to come up with a plan to fund them for future years.
Officials say a committee is being formed to focus on major fundraising to keep athletes on the field for years to come.
“Money is dwindling for schools and you've got to find creative ways to do things,” said Marye Mathieu, the president of the Menominee Sports Booster Club.
Mathieu says the booster club is stepping up its contributions. In the past it helped pay for things like coach buses for long road trips. This year it will help fund a majority of some of the athletic programs at risk of being cut.
