Plymouth High School Athletic Director Josh Troyer made a presentation during the regular Plymouth School Board meeting last week updating them on his department’s activities and plans for the coming year.
A lot of the presentation dealt with the department’s finances, fundraising and needs. School athletic departments do not receive tax dollars to operate and must use gate receipts, fundraising, and donations to supply extra-curricular activities.
Troyer told the board the final income of athletics was $136,000 for the past year and estimated that the coming year’s total would be around $138,000.
Troyer said that the annual Big Red Open golf outing provided about 28 percent of each year’s total and was hoping that number might be higher in the coming year with some additional sponsors.
Gate receipts in the fall sports provided 20 percent of that total and Troyer said it was a positive that 48 percent of the department’s funds were in-house by October of each year which makes budgeting easier.
Troyer said that 16 percent of the budget came from Plymouth Athletic Booster Club support.
Gate shares for IHSAA tournaments enter into the equation but Troyer said that what schools are in the sectional has a significant effect on that share since some schools “travel better” than others.
Concession sales also enter into the budget but rising prices for those items also have a negative effect on the bottom line. He said that his hope was to hold concession prices steady but there might be a need to raise the cost of some items.
Troyer said that he hopes to be able to get back on a five-year rotation for new uniforms for all the high school teams. The COVID pandemic gave the budget a hit that it is still recovering from. He noted that some teams have raised money for uniforms but he was “…not a fan of that…” unless the team wanted a special item in addition. He also noted that uniforms are passed down from varsity to JV and freshman teams in most programs and that a five-year life for the uniforms was tough in some cases.
Troyer said that the department was fortunate in paying for the transportation line item since they only paid for mileage but the cost still came out to $20,000 a year. Equipment costs for all the teams ran around $36,500 for the year.
A major expense is officials for all events and that cost is fluid and came out to $30,000 for the past year. Troyer told the board that officials were receiving, in some cases, $25 more per contest in other locations and many officials that could work contests in Plymouth were choosing to go elsewhere to be able to make more money.
He noted the dwindling number of officials and said that in the spring a major consideration on rescheduling an event was whether or not they would be able to find officials. He said that consideration was being given to raising the stipend for officials but preferred the path of raising it slowly and not having an instant $15-20 increase at once.
The AD’s office is also in the process of accessing all facilities and their maintenance needs. He told the board that the PHS building trades class had been helpful in addressing some of those needs. He said that his hope was to do the best they could to anticipate maintenance needs and not have to address those at the last minute.
