Proposal creates rancor at board meeting; decision delayed to allow time for review

Patterson Joint Unified School District staff on Monday recommended charging students a $30 fee for playing school sports.

Superintendent Patrick Sweeney presented the proposal to the board, whose members decided they needed more time to review it, but not before the high school football coach told them the fee would be illegal.

The proposed fee would charge $30 to students for one sport and another $20 for a second sport. Families with more than one student playing sports would not be charged more than a total of $180.

Patterson High School varsity football coach Rob Cozart left his practice early to make Monday’s meeting.

“(The fee proposal) is a knee-jerk reaction,” Cozart said. “There needs to be more discussion. I don’t think any of the other coaches even realize this is happening.”

Tensions mounted between Cozart and board member Bruce Kelly, the only board member who did not want to delay the matter.

At one point, Kelly said to Cozart, “I think you misunderstand what the board does.”

When Cozart said he could have had 100 students at the meeting that night, Kelly responded, “Are you threatening us to not pass this?”

Behind the fee proposal is a budget crunch stemming from reduced state funding for public education.

“(About) $3.6 million was cut from our budget,” Sweeney said. “We can’t just create money.”

So instead, the board has made huge cuts, including layoffs. The fee increase is just another piece of getting the district’s finances in order, Sweeney said.

Cozart, however, said the fee would be illegal because the education code forbids a pay-for-play system. Sweeney responded that the proposed fee is voluntary — more of a donation than a fee — which makes it legal. However, after the meeting, Sweeney said he’s considering a transportation fee, which would likely be mandatory and can be legally collected.

In other words, as proposed, the students would still be allowed to play high school sports even if they don’t pay the fee, but Sweeney is trying to find a legal way to make it mandatory.

Sweeney expects to meet with coaches in the coming weeks to draft a new proposal that should go to the board Aug. 3, essentially granting Cozart’s request for time to review more options. What form the new proposal will take is uncertain, but the goal remains the same: either eliminating $32,000 each semester from the sports budget or raising that amount.

Cozart was not necessarily against a fee, he said, but said he had not been told about the proposal in a timely manner. He first learned about it Thursday, he said, adding that given a week or two, he might be able to find a way to cut costs instead of charging money.

Kelly responded that the district’s budget advisory committee had voted on the matter in March and people have had plenty of time to review it. Now it’s time to move forward, he said.

The March decision Kelly referred was not open to the public. All budget advisory committee meetings were private, and Cozart said he was never informed of a possible participation fee.

When asked after Monday’s meeting why closed meetings constituted adequate public notice, Kelly said the committee’s findings were just recommendations and that “everyone in the nation should know California has economic problems.”

The other board members wanted more review, specifically on how much money the district expects to make from the fees. Because calculations require knowing how many students are eligible for waived or reduced fees based on family income, figures weren’t available by the time of the meeting, Sweeney said.

The back-and-forth between Cozart and Kelly continued as the debate wound down.

“You owe us half a million,” Kelly said to Cozart, referring to money Cozart said would be donated for construction of Patterson Community Stadium in 2007. So far, that money has not materialized. In the meantime, the district’s facilities fund was tapped to cover the gap, Sweeney said.

Kelly grew so frustrated with his fellow board members’ refusal to move forward that he essentially cast a protest vote on a later item.

When the time came to vote on selecting a company to implement online classes, Kelly said, “I need to know exactly how much it is going to cost and how much it’s going to make us.

“I’m being facetious, if anyone couldn’t tell.”

That vote passed 4-1.

• Contact John Saiz at 892-6187 or john@pattersonirrigator.com.