Just found this explanation on the Pigskin football site. This will clear up a lot of misconceptions being thrown around:
"As the County's Director of Recreation and Parks I wanted to clarify a few points in the "County Government wants to take over football program" article. First, the County Commissiners have not made a decison on this. The Board has taken R&P's proposal under advisement and plans to make a decision about this in the near future.
Second, the proposal for R&P to run the County football program will not cost taxpayers $300,000 as indicated in the article. R&P's proposal to the Commissioners suggested that it may be necessary to provide financial assistance (i.e loans) to three or more community youth football organizations or clubs that would be established.
These volunteer run clubs would be the backbone of the new program as they would do the necessary work to establish and enter teams into the League which would be run by R&P. The clubs would pay a franchise fee for each team entered into the League to pay for referees and other League expenses. This organizational model is used successfully in Charles and Calvert Counties for youth football.
In a worse case scenario, $200,000 in start up money may have to be available for loans to these clubs to enable them to purchase equipment and get established. This money would be expected to be repaid to the County over a couple of years after the clubs held registration and did fundraising.
A separate recommendation was made to the Comissioners about a youth sports iniative which would require youth league administrator's and coaches to have background checks and be trained through a national program. This initiative would be administered by R&P and involve all youth sports leagues who want to use County facilities. A new R&P staff person would be needed to work with sports leagues to implement and manage this program. Only about 25% of this new person's time would go towards running the youth football program. The new staff position would cost about $55,000 per year.
Finally, R&P proposed that the County provide $25,000 in tax funds for scholarships for all youth sports leagues. This would enable Leagues to accomodate low and moderate income families who have financial hardships. The $25,000 would provide financial support to all leagues for individuals unable to pay the registration fee.
The article also said "the plan has weight and age limits which are very unsafe for our kids and the registration costs will double from what you paid last year..." The R&P proposal did not address weight and age divisions; that is something that would be worked out with input from all of the youth football clubs if the new league is established. Nor did the proposal suggest what the registration fees would be. In reality, each community football club would determine what its participant registration fee would be, not R&P.
R&P and the County Commissioners are interested in hearing from League participants about this and we encourage you to do so.
Phil Rollins, Director
St. Mary's County Recreation, Parks
and Community Services
301-475-4200 x1811
phil.rollins@co.saint-marys.md.us "
Thanks BOCC for supporting the New League. It took awhile Chris but it was well worth it, thanks. Good luck with the '06 season Southern County Football.
