Archive: Around Town

The Town of Lansing Recreation Department has a long history of cooperation with the Lansing Central School District.  The two have one of the most integrated approaches to sports imaginable, with kids starting in Rec Department programs, learning the same strategies and techniques that are used by modified, junior varsity, and varsity coaches in the schools.  It's a life-long progression that may be responsible for Lansing varsity athletes' remarkable success.

With school revenue dropping over the proverbial 'funding cliff', that connection is poised to become much closer.  Faced with annually growing budget gaps, school officials are looking at extra-curricular activities to help save money.  Part of the plan would be to make extra-curriculars 'pay for play' activities.  And part is to off-load these activities to the Recreation Department.

"Some people may think that it's just a shifting of tax dollars from one place to another," says Lansing Recreation Director Steve Colt.  "That's really not the case.  For the most part it uses the template that we've used for over 20 years in a lot of our bigger volunteer-run programs.  Essentially it creates opportunities for kids.  That's what we do.  now we're going to duplicate that for the same kids that were in our programs at one point and have aged out."

Colt has been pow-wowing with school officials for the past few months, talking about what the future of extra-curricular activities could look like.  He says that for the end-users -- the students -- it would be virtually seamless.  Clubs and activities would meet on the school campus as they currently do.  The actual activities would be much the same as they are now.

But there would be a few key differences.  Aside from modest fees, the main difference will be the use of volunteers instead of paid advisors and coaches.  That may mean later meeting times to accommodate volunteers who can't get to the schools until after work, and it may create some room scheduling issues as well as transportation issues.  Colt says those problems are far from insurmountable.

"Look at the travel sports programs," he says.  "Moms and dads transport kids there.  That may be an option that could save transportation costs.  you have to find out what the legalities are.  It could be done because it has been done.  The question is, will it translate to the scholastic level?"

The Rec Department and schools got a chance to give the idea a trial run this winter with the cheerleading team.  Parents and team members had raised over $3,000 last Fall to pay for a fall cheerleading coach.  About $500 was left for the Winter season, but a different approach was needed.  Colt's department stepped in with a pay-for-play program that required only a small fee by finding a volunteer coach to work with the team.

"The fee covered administration costs including paperwork, and making sure kids were registered in our database for insurance purposes, and things like that," he says.  "But most of the uniforms and equipment and things of that nature were already in place.  So there were no charges there.  They fund-raise, and the coaches were volunteers.  It gave a volunteer the opportunity to give their time so that the kids could have this opportunity.  That was really the bottom line.  If the budget situation gets tougher and tougher and they have to make these cuts that scenario could be used to keep some of these teams alive."

Colt says this approach will be taken for any extra-curricular activities that his department takes over, making sure that fees stay low and that scholarships are available for kids who can't afford to pay.  Currently qualification for Rec Department scholarships is determined by whether a child is enrolled in the assisted meals programs in the schools, and Colt says that's a proven model that could be applied to programs for the older kids.

"When we have any ability to provide a scholarship for a needy kid we are absolutely going to do that," Colt says.  "That template is already in place by way of the assisted lunch and breakfast program in the school.  That's what we use in our application form for Rec scholarships.  The pool of money comes from the United Way.  We dedicate that money for scholarships."

Colt acknowledges that there are costs in reconditioning sports and other equipment to make sure it remains safe.  He says you rotate maintenance and purchases so you don't have all the expenses in one year.  He says with long term planning fees can be kept as low as possible.  Many teams turn to fund raising to buy uniforms, swim suits, equipment, and so on, but Colt says that there is a limit to fund raising that modest fees can address.

"Everybody's going to get tired of fund raising sooner or later, because it's being done for everything," he says.  "It's a necessary thing now, obviously, but at some point people are going to reach their limit as to how many chickens they can eat, and how many times you're going to knock on their door.  It's overload, and it's a tough thing.  So here we like to limit that only to the items that are above and beyond normal, or the necessities that can't be touched.  Ultimately our goal is to keep costs as low as we can, and I think we do an excellent job."

His department has a successful history of doing more with less.  Colt says the town is lucky to not only have so many volunteers to help out with recreation programs, but so many talented and qualified ones.  He is not daunted by the prospect of enlarging his program considerably to encompass school extra-curriculars if that is what is to come to be.

"The formula is very simple," he says.  "It's just a matter of plugging in whatever that activity is.  We will try to institute that same template into an older age group format.  Using the power of volunteers you're creating a much smaller fee for the participant that just covers the basics.  The town taxpayers are not strapped with the burden of paying for a professional coach."

For the past three months or more School Superintendent Stephen Grimm and Business Administrator Mary June King have been telling the Lansing Board Of Education that while they are not recommending massive cuts for the 2011-2012 school year, that there will be a serious drop in resources the following year.  That may necessitate off-loading extra-curricular activities to the town.  Both school and town officials seem pleased that they can leverage their history of cooperation to continue to provide rich experiences for Lansing kids.

"We're all working together because we all want the same thing," Colt observes.  "Ultimately it's opportunities for the kids.  That's the only reason we do this stuff.  We're all pulling on the same side of the rope.  It's a matter of how we plug these programs into that type of template if that's what seems be what works, and how do we find space and time to make it all happen?"

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