VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — If your child wants to play sports with Virginia Beach City Public Schools next year it may not be free.
A fee to play sports is just one of the options highlighted in Tuesday night's school board budget briefing as school leaders prepare for a possible 2-cent reduction on the city's real estate tax.
"It's great for them physically and mentally, and I'm just totally against paying to play," Kimberley Jerald, a parent said.
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Jerald's son is a 7th grader at Independence Middle School and loves to play soccer.
"There were two 6th graders who made it last year, and he was one of them," Jerald said.
Her excitement turned to shock when she learned next year parents like her may have to pay to allow their students to play on a team.
"A lot of parents I know are trying to make ends meet as it is and they've been cutting back in other ways," Jerald said. "If you tell them 'yeah now you're going to have to pay for your kids to play sports in schools' they're going to say 'well, I'm not going to do it.'"
Dr. Donald Robertson said, pay to play, is just one option the school board is looking at to address the possible funding loss of nearly $6 million if city leaders cut down the real estate tax.
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Some of that money would go to paying referees and police officers at games.
"If you're involved in extracurricular activities and you wanna play and you're on reduced lunch, it's $50 a season," Robertson said. "If you're not on free or reduced lunch it's $100 per season because the increase in costs we've seen to cover our athletic programs are into the millions."
Robertson said the city stepped up this year and delivered on funding but said the state did not.
He said the net increase from state funding is just $545,000 more than last year.
"I don't even know how to respond to that," Robertson said.
He is hopeful Richmond will change the funding but because of this, if a tax reduction happens they will have to find ways to make up money.
Some of the recommendations include the pay-to-play program, not buying new school buses or cutting central office staff.
"For us that $5.7 million is just a deeper wound to a wound we already have," Robertson said.
Nothing is set in stone yet and money allocation could change.
The school board could vote on its budget as early as March 12.
