The Salina School District faces dramatic cuts in budgets this year and next, thanks to falling revenues at the state level. Recently, Gov. Mark Parkinson announced his plans for cutting $260 million from state budgets just to make ends meet.

Those cuts must include education funding because K-12 spending makes up nearly half of the state's $13.5 billion annual budget.

As reported Nov. 22 by the Journal's Michael Strand, these new cuts come on top of $2 million in budget reductions at the Salina district for the current school year. Salina School District Superintendent Rob Winter says the district could face an additional $3 million to $4 million in cuts by 2011.

Plenty of folks have suggestions on where those reductions should be made. Popular targets include areas viewed as luxury items -- those programs that go beyond the basic of reading, writing and 'rithmetic.

Chief among those are sports and other extracurricular activities. That's understandable, at least until we look behind the numbers.

Winter reports that about 70 percent of students are involved in sports. For many, it's the reason they stay in school and make the grades required for participation.

The same goes for electives, such as music, art and shop classes. They keep young people in school getting an education that helps make them more productive members of society when they graduate.

As Winter points out, all sports, including varsity and junior varsity in high schools and middle schools, cost the district about $800,000 a year.

That's a lot of money. But it's a small piece of the district's annual budget of some $117 million.

We'll leave it to the pros, like Winter, to decide where reductions should take place. But we are glad to see that wholesale cutting of sports and other programs is not on the radar -- at least not yet.

-- Tom Bell

Editor & Publisher

822-1491

tbell@salina.com

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