Published in the February 10, 2016 edition

By MARK SARDELLA

WAKEFIELD — He’s only been on the job for about six months but last night Brendan Kent made his first appearance before the School Committee since he was hired last summer as the Wakefield Public Schools’ K-12 Director of Athletics, Health and Wellness.
Kent described some of the program’s success stories, what he views as the program’s needs and his plans to grow the program.
Kent talked about the league champion Wakefield Memorial High School wrestling, girls’ cross country and boys’ basketball teams. He also talked about the successes WMHS teams enjoyed in golf, boys’ cross-country, soccer, dance, cheering, girls’ hockey, swimming and volleyball.
He discussed the enhanced use of social media to promote and provide updates about school athletic programs and other efforts to improve communication with parents.
Kent also reviewed how the Wakefield Public Schools (WPS) budget works.
“The Athletics Budget operates off a revolving account with money coming in and going out,” Kent noted.
He noted that the money comes from user fees and game ticket sales. The revolving account covers a range of areas, Kent explained, including team transportation, equipment, the athletic trainer’s salary, sports medicine supplies, facility rentals, reconditioning of equipment, game day operations and trophies among other costs.
He stressed that coaches’ salaries, the Athletic Director’s salary and the AD’s secretary’s salaries are covered by the School Department budget and are not covered by the revolving account.
Kent said that the FY’16 revenues to date in the revolving account total $235,640. Total expenses to date are $186,438, he said, leaving a current net balance of $49,202. He noted that revenue coming in from spring sports will be limited because many families have already hit their user fee cap of $780. In addition, spring sports are typically not revenue generators. Therefore, Kent said, the projected budget for the remainder of the school year will be tight and all of it will be needed to cover expenses for the rest of the year.
Kent said that a number of things are being done to try to bring in more revenue. Pointed to the ongoing effort to heavily promote home games of revenue generating sports like football and basketball.
“We have been trying to increase participation and build up our numbers,” Kent said.
In addition, he said, the Athletic Department has been teaming up with booster organizations, partnering with local businesses like The Savings Bank and Honeydew Donuts and running fundraisers like a mattress sale that raised $4,300.
Efforts to grow programs, Kent said, include collaborating with the town’s Recreation Department, Wakefield Academy, Wakefield Youth Sports organizations and the Galvin Middle School to help develop some middle school sports programs. Efforts are being made to promote WMHS sports to both high school and middle school students to encourage them to attend high school sports events.
Kent compared the participation numbers for each sport for this year and last year. He said that while there was some variation year to year in the numbers for each sport, overall participation remains steady.
In terms of budget issues, Kent said that transportation costs and the price of ice time for hockey remain concerns. Other costs are going up too, he said, adding that user fees have not increased in eight years, so revenue remains flat despite rising expenses.
Kent discussed some ideas for saving money, like bundling sports insurance with either the schools’ or the town’s policies. He talked about washing and storing uniforms on site rather than sending them out.
He also floated the idea of looking for a different hockey venue or renegotiating the contract so that Wakefield would be allowed to collect at least some of the money from the gate and concession sales, rather than all of it going to the arena.
Kent said that a small (5 percent) increase in user fees would translate into approximately an additional $16,500 annually for the program. He talked about the possibility of cutting back on practice from five to four days a week for team sports that require facilities to be rented and using the other day for strength and conditioning.
He also proposed updating the accounting system used for the athletic program by using accounting software rather than paper records.
School Committee members praised Kent’s performance to date particularly with regard to stepping up the promotion of the athletic program, including on social media.