Palos Verdes School District May Eliminate Spring Sports : Finances: Baseball, track and other sports may be temporarily canceled by the board Monday to ease budget woes.

The financially strapped Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District is considering canceling competitive spring sports, such as baseball, track and swimming, at its three high schools and using the $85,000 in savings to bolster the district’s budget reserve.

At a meeting Monday that is expected to be packed with parents bent on saving the sports program, the Board of Education will discuss canceling spring sports and could take action if no other way is found to reduce spending, school officials said.

The board already has trimmed more than $2 million from the 1990-91 budget, and Supt. Michael Caston said last week that there is nothing else to cut except sports.

“We have a hiring freeze and spending freeze in place. We’ve cut supply accounts, cut custodians and administrators and other classified staff,” he said. “There is nowhere else to go.”

Caston said the board requested further cuts in the district’s $33-million budget after projections showed that the district will be left with only a 1.6% reserve at the end of the fiscal year--an amount board President Jack Bagdasar termed “dangerously low.”

Caston said a financially tight district such as Palos Verdes should have a 3% reserve, but this is not feasible. “We want to have a minimum of 2%, which is $670,000,” he said, adding that this could be achieved by cutting spring sports.

The superintendent said the board’s only alternative to cutting sports is living with a smaller reserve. “It’s a tough issue,” he said. “(Sports) is the last thing we would wish to cut. High school athletics is such a positive, good thing.”

Optimistic that district finances will improve next year through such measures as school consolidation, Caston called the cut in sports “temporary, a one-time consideration. . . . The program would begin again in September.”

District officials said canceling the program would affect 39 coaches and an estimated 900 students at Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and Miraleste high schools. Total enrollment at the high schools is 3,297.

Sports being threatened at all three schools are track, swimming, boys’ baseball, girls’ softball, boys’ volleyball and boys’ tennis. In addition, golf would be cut at Miraleste and Palos Verdes.

There are indications, however, that if the district stops supporting spring sports financially, athletic booster groups at the high schools will try to raise money to keep them going.

Athletic directors at Palos Verdes and Miraleste said their booster groups already have met to discuss financial support for the threatened programs. In the wake of previous budget cuts by the board, boosters--who include parents and alumni--have donated money for equipment and coaches.

“I don’t think we will see the program lost because of board cutoffs,” said Tom Graves, the athletic director at Miraleste.

At risk are stipends paid to coaches for extra duties involving interscholastic sports, along with money for some sports supplies. They total $85,000 for the spring semester, which begins in March.

In addition to district money, high school sports are financed by athletes’ parents, who pay an average of $175 per child. This includes a mandatory $110 transportation fee and a donation that is used for uniforms and major equipment.

While acknowledging that parents and students do not want to lose competitive sports, school officials said the community understands the district’s financial plight.

“The community truly believes we are hurting,” Bagdasar said.

Pete Fawaz, athletic director at Palos Verdes High, said he was not “overly shocked” by the prospects of a sports cut. “The budget has been trimmed, and I don’t know where you find any more fat,” he said.

But Fawaz said the loss of spring athletics would “leave a tremendous void. . . . (Sports) are like all activity programs, a big part of the day. They go hand in hand with the academic program. They’re things (students) look forward to.”