South Central makes cuts in athletics for ’13-’14

Another school in Fayette County has been forced to make budget cuts, and those cuts will affect athletics.

South Central District 403’s board of education last Wednesday approved budget cuts for next school year, and those cuts included several in the area of athletics.

In addition to the cuts, a fee of $40 will be applied to students who play one sport and $60 for students who play two or more sports.

Most notably, the number of sports offered to students at the middle school and high school has been reduced to two, but decisions have yet to be made on which sports will be offered.

Other notable changes include eliminating all extracurricular transportation, eliminating all assistant coaches and reducing the number of games in the fall baseball season to 12 plus the National Trail Conference Tournament.

Nine of those games will be NTC games, and this past fall, the schedule included 22 games, with three in the NTC Tournament.

Additional cuts included: sixth-grade basketball (though players can still play at the JV level on the middle school team), and fifth- and sixth-grade cheerleading.

The moves mark the third time significant changes have recently been made to athletics in county schools as the state struggles to fund schools at necessary levels.

At Vandalia, all athletic transportation and sixth-grade sports were cut in sweeping changes approved  on Jan. 30.

At St. Elmo and Brownstown, the schools have been preparing throughout the year to begin co-oping in all high school and junior high athletic programs, starting next school year.