Dear Editor,

The Warren County School District is being as fiscally responsible with our tax dollars as a 5-year-old at a candy counter with a $5 bill in hand. The vote at their meeting Monday evening merging Youngsville and Sheffield’s jr. high wrestling teams with Warren’s was to say the least, a complete waste of money. Had the board educated themselves on the issue instead of going with a numbers only concept they may have seen that. Speaking of those numbers, let’s look closely. You have two programs that cost the district NOTHING.

They piggyback off the varsity programs, traveling with them, wrestling with them and sharing coaches and volunteers to make the programs solvent. Neither school pays a coach at the jr. high level. Warren-Beaty pays a coach $2,700 and an assistant at $800 if numbers support paying 2 coaches. Transporting wrestlers to Warren costs $500 a week and exceeds the cost of an entire season if the programs are left in their home school. The winter season is nearly 13 weeks long. That’s over $6,000! Additional travel is also incurred by parents at nearly $300 in extra gas for the season just for practice pickups. It’s one thing to merge a basketball team that has 4 kids sign up to play. Jr. high basketball plays a separate schedule from varsity, travels separate, pays separate referees.

Comparing a team sport requiring a specific number of participants to play to wrestling is equal to comparing an apple to a watermelon in size.

Make no mistake, consolidation will be necessary at some point in time and is fully appreciated when fiscal responsibility dictates. However, this is certainly not that instance. The WCSD Board is wasting my hard-earned tax dollars once again.

David L. Myers,

Pittsfield