Cary District 26 to cut funds for activities

Among the after-school offerings at Cary's Prairie Hill Elementary School is a journalism club where budding Bob Woodwards can sharpen their writing and reporting skills.

But that club, along with activities ranging from service groups to tutoring sessions, could be at risk now that officials in Cary Elementary School District 26 have recommending cutting funding for after-school programs.

The recommendation, one of a number of proposed cuts for the upcoming school year, does not apply to sports and other activities that collect fees.

"Our goal is to balance the budget," District 26 Superintendent Brian Coleman said. "It's not that we're canceling them. We just can't afford to pay teachers to sponsor them."

District 26 officials stressed that clubs that are not self-funded can continue - if interested students and parents find a volunteer to run the club or raise enough through fees to pay a teacher to sponsor the activity.

Even with the cuts, the administration projects the district will be almost $1.9 million in the hole at the end of the 2009-10 school year, an improvement over a previous budget draft that forecast a $2.1 million deficit.

"We'll continue to look at ways to reduce items within the district and make things a little bit more efficient," Coleman said. The 2010-11 budget, he said, "is a budget that the board and the administration is committed to balancing."

Denise Barr, a parent of two children in District 26, said that while the district needs to offer after-school programs to develop well-rounded kids, the district's top priority should be protecting classroom instruction.

"I'm mostly concerned about what's happening between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.," Barr said. "If it means we have to get rid of these extracurricular things to keep it, I would gladly do the trade."

Finance Committee Chairman Chris Jenner said the proposed cuts are a step in the right direction, but that the district needs to do more to right its financial ship.

"I just don't think that any of our budgets should have (a deficit)," Jenner said. "What we're doing for 2011, we should have been doing four years ago."