By Jennifer Yang
Staff Writer

Does Athletic Booster distribute money fairly?

Where can a complete outfit cost $400? School sports. Costs vary from sport to sport, but parents generally have to cover the base fee, uniform and additional equipment.
Athletes and parents wonder why they need to spend so much money when clubs like the Athletic Booster help fund team costs. However, they forget that the Athletic Booster’s job is not easy at all. Athletes and parents go through their sport’s season complaining about expenses without finding out anything about the Athletic Booster club.
With over 50 teams to help, the Athletic Booster has both the experience and its reasons for choosing to fund certain activities or needs. According to Rose Rambo, Athletic Booster President of 2004-2005, the athletic program at Los Altos High School costs at least $35,000 each year or an average of $500 per student per sport. However, with the Athletic Booster’s involvement and help, the base fee is lowered to $100. That’s $400 less than what athletes should really be paying. Suddenly $100 does not seem as much.
For the 2003-2004 school year, the total budget for all of the sports teams was $28,949. Out of that amount, football and baseball used $5,000 or 17.3 percent each, while aquatics used $4,820 because of the bleachers that were purchased. These three sports spent 51.2 percent of the total budget, leaving less than half for the other sports.
It might seem unfair to leave only $14,000 for everyone else, but last year was the “expensive year” for football, baseball and aquatics, according to Rambo.
“We did this not because we favored one sport over the other, but because this allocation of funds focused on the biggest needs,” Rambo said.
The Athletic Booster is fair because it rotates through the sports. Each sport is allotted an “expensive year,” allowing all sports to receive new equipment every few years.
Since last year was the “expensive year” for the most expensive sports, the Athletic Booster will focus on other sports this year.
Baseball, football and aquatics are typically the most expensive sports due to the frequent replacement of equipment and uniform. For teams that do not receive much money on a certain year, fundraising is definitely an option.
“There are more requirements than we have money, so most…of the teams do have to do some team fundraising to pay for items that the other groups cannot cover in that year,” Rambo said.
For this year, Athletic Booster leaders met with the coaches and discussed their needs.
“Based on the input and what we have purchased in the past for teams, we allocated the money we planned to raise as fairly as we could to the various sports,” Rambo said.
Taking into account the numerous teams with financial needs, the Athletic Booster has done a good job on giving as much equal support as possible. With the fair rotation of each team’s “expensive year,” the Athletic Booster is dedicated to making school sports run smoothly.
Athletes should appreciate what the club does for the school’s sports program, because of the Booster’s large financial contributions. For athletes who still think that sports expenses are too high, they have one other option: fundraise.