Trustee: Private Interests Could Support Athletics : Budget: L.A. school board member Mark Slavkin backs the elimination of district funds for interscholastic sports.

The point man on the proposal to eliminate athletic funding from the Los Angeles Unified School District budget admits the plan is a longshot but insists that private funding would make it viable.

School board member Mark Slavkin, who represents West Los Angeles, Hollywood and the airport area, said this week he does not expect fellow trustees to support his plan to cut the $5-million athletics budget because sports have become a political sacred cow.

However, he is confident that if $5 million was eliminated, there would be no shortage of corporate sources that would step forward to underwrite the district’s sports programs.

Particularly after the fact.

“It’s easier to pursue the day after we cut sports,” Slavkin said. “The day after we cut is the day a lot of people step forward.

“Sports is one of the few parts of the program that are so visible and sexy that people will support it (if it is eliminated).”

The board is in the process of making huge cuts in the 1992-93 budget to minimize salary cuts that could run as high as 17.5% for district employees. The overall budget must be in place by Sept. 30.

The official athletics budget for 1992-93 is listed as $3.5 million, though Slavkin said “hidden costs,” such as supervision and security, put the number closer to $5 million.

Slavkin said district staff members have been directed to study alternative sources of financing for athletics, such as a ticket surcharge at professional athletic events. The surcharge would be nominal, perhaps in the range of 25 to 35 cents per ticket, Slavkin said.

He said he hopes that if athletics are cut, professional franchises would voluntarily agree to the ticket surcharge. If a 35-cent surcharge was added to each Dodger ticket, it would generate $962,500 if the team draws 2.75 million. Schools in San Francisco receive funding from a ticket surcharge.

“It would be a great public-relations deal for the L.A. teams,” Slavkin said.

He also predicted that corporate sponsors--such as soft-drink manufacturers and shoe companies--would quickly fall into place to help subsidize the athletics program.

Slavkin outlined a budget that eliminated athletics in June, but the board shot down the proposal by 6-to-1 vote.

He is not optimistic his plan will be greeted more favorably this time, but he said the economic climate might force the hand of the six other trustees.

“My sense is that it won’t be cut, that they won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole,” Slavkin said.

“But in this environment, things that in the past have been untouchable, things that were unthinkable, have become thinkable.”