The Lisbon school system has decided not to discontinue the family activities passes for the coming school year, after hearing from families who want to use them. The family activity passes will cost $200 and allow two adults and all children from the same household to attend an activity.
Lisbon activities director Eric Ries noted that the activities budget took a significant hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the fund at negative $40,000 at the end of the year.
The activities fund pays for state fees, officials, uniforms and other supplies and gets a chunk of its revenue from ticket and concession sales. Coach salaries are covered in the general fund.
Part of that budget issue was the cost of officials for any game or contest. Ries noted that for events like basketball, which requires three officials per high school game, that adds up to more than $300 a home game.
“Without having gate admission for a significant chunk of the 2020-21 sports season, we just weren’t able to make much revenue from our activities to offset expenses,” Ries said.
The other issue is the success of Lisbon athletes. Attending state contests, including hotel rentals and travel for those events, can get upwards to $4,000 or $5,000 a pop.
Ries noted another issue is just attendance at area games.
“Even before COVID-19, we were seeing less people in the stands,” Ries said. “Some of that is the schools we face in our conference just don’t have a lot of fans that travel to away games. Even for our own Lisbon families, though, the numbers haven’t been there every week to always pay enough for the officials from gates and concession stand sales.”
To help keep the activities fund solvent, Ries proposed a $10 increase for student athletic passes, taking those from $65 to $75 a year, a $15 increase to adult athletic admission passes, from $85 now up to $100 a year, and the family athletic admission pass to increase $25, from $175 to $200 this year.
Ries said that the activities department will be hosting a fundraiser at the beginning of the school year to help all activities at the school district, with details on that to be released in the coming weeks.
Lisbon superintendent Pat Hocking said the district will be bringing the fund back to 0 at the start of this school year with a transfer of funds from the general fund planned at next month’s school board meeting.