Balancing Budgets: How Does Your Athletic Department Compare

New survey data shows athletic budgets at most high schools remain relatively the same this year

Go online, read the news and you are bound to find numerous articles on the sad state of the United States economy. Unemployment continues to stifle progress. People have less money and are spending less than a decade ago.

The same holds true when you dig a bit deeper and look into the U.S. education system and its school systems. Money is tight. Funding is down. Cuts are being made. A bleak picture has been painted.

For athletic departments, however, there still appears to be hope. Parents still want their children to succeed on the field. Simply, sports still play a major role in the lives of the students, their parents and the fans of your athletic program. According to the High School Athletics Participation Survey released by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in late August, there are 22,000 more high school students playing sports this year than last, which marks the 22nd consecutive year the number has increased. High school sports remain a way of life in America.

Coach And Athletic Director recently conducted a high-school athletic-director survey and received 366 responses ranging from athletic directors who are in charge of a single, lower-income department all the way up to those in charge of 100 coaches or more and have a budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Despite the general economic woes, the data in this survey reveals that 60% of athletic-department budgets for 2011-12 remained the same or increased from the previous year.

While more schools are turning to “pay to play” and extensive fundraising to make ends meet, athletic departments still are adding sports, planning construction or renovation projects, spending money on equipment and finding a way to continue to provide the essentials (and some “luxury” items) to their athletes and coaches.

Football Still King
With a broad range of budgets at their disposal (16.3% of respondents work with $25,000 or less while 6.4% have $500,000 or more to spend), athletic directors are proving the cliché that “football is king” in their spending.

When asked about the amount of change within the categories of their budgets for 2011-12, “helmets” is the area in which athletic directors plan on spending more money this year. The Virginia Tech research information about helmets and concussions (previously reported in Coach And Athletic Director in its August and September issues) clearly is having an effect on how quickly departments are updating their helmets. An impressive 25.7% of athletic directors plan on increasing their budget spending this year on helmets.

Not far behind that number is “football equipment,” as 24.6% of respondents indicated they are spending more this year compared to last.

Renovations Planned

Major construction projects still are being commissioned and initiated despite the economy, according to athletic directors. Almost one-third (31.5%) of all respondents said they are expecting to take on a “court resurfacing” project in the next three years. When all respondents were asked about “track and field resurfacing,” more than a quarter (25.7%) said they have this project on their to-do list within the next three years.

The numbers may not be as high but 15.7% of schools are planning to install artificial turf in the next three years with “gymnasium construction” mentioned by 12.6% of all respondents. While resurfacing is an upgrade that needs to be done more regularly than a turf installation, it’s clear that athletic directors are finding the benefits of turf to be too good to ignore.

When it comes allocating staff expenses in this year’s budget compared to last year’s, “clinic attendance” appears to be taking the biggest hit. Almost 20% of respondents report that money for clinic attendance has been cut for the coming year. With 68.6% of athletic directors reporting that coaching pay is to remain the same this year while 14.7% report a decrease, will coaches reach into their pockets to further their education?