WAIPAHU — Public high school athletics has been spared from a proposed $1 million budget cut, after the Board of Education voted late last night to send the proposed overall budget reductions back to the Department of Education excluding athletics and other items from consideration.

The action effectively saved the state's junior varsity sports programs, which service 6,000 teenagers, many of whom are considered "at-risk" youth.

"We are so gratified by the overwhelming public support we received ever since these budget cut issues arose a month ago," said Keith Amemiya, executive director of the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association. "That support, combined with all the testimony tonight, was a big sign of how important athletics are to our kids' education."

After about four hours of emotional testimony during the BOE meeting at Waipahu Intermediate School — including appearances by University of Hawai'i football coach Greg McMackin and Mayor Mufi Hannemann — the board went into discussion regarding the proposed cuts.

Board member Breene Harimoto made a motion to remand the proposed cuts back to the DOE, and member John Penebacker moved to amend the motion to exclude athletics, a popular space program called Challenger Center of Hawai'i, and other smaller items.

Board chairperson Donna Ikeda and member Denise Matsumoto expressed concerns that such an amendment will "create sacred cows," but the motion passed by a vote of seven to four.

"I think we've done a bad thing here, this is very bad policy," Ikeda said immediately after the vote was taken. "It is one thing to listen to testimony and receive new information, but to have a knee-jerk reaction to public (pleas) ... ultimately we will not be looked at as good decision-makers."

Ikeda said all programs need to be looked at, since "none are less valuable than the others" to the people who support them.

Assistant schools superintendent Daniel Hamada said the DOE probably will receive the original proposal — minus the approximately $2.4 million targeted for cutting athletics and other smaller programs requested by the Board motion — on Monday.

"They (the BOE) make the call, then we gotta see what the Department has to do next," said Hamada, who was part of the leadrship group that came up with the original proposed cuts. "We'll look at alternatives, but the bottom line is we have to cut from somewhere. Now we have more clarity and we have to see what the next steps are."

The original proposed cuts included $1 million from athletics, part of a proposed $9 million overall cut to the DOE budget for 2009-2010.

McMackin approached the microphone to speak to the BOE earlier last night wearing his Under Armour windbreaker shirt and gym shorts.

"I apologize for the way I'm dressed," McMackin said, with a crowd of about 400 at Waipahu Intermediate School cafeteria sitting behind him. "I don't always dress like this, but I just came from practice. I left my team because I told them I had something very important to discuss with the Board of Education, something I believe in.

"We're getting ready to play Florida, and I'm missing some meetings right now. But to me, this is more important than a game."

McMackin was one in a long line of speakers — including Hannemann and two members of the House of Representatives — who pleaded with the board to spare junior varsity athletics.

The possibility prompted a storm of pleas from the public, and vice chairman Herbert Watanabe called last night's gathering "the largest crowd we've had for any board meeting."

Hannemann, who identified himself as a former JV athlete and coach, said sports is "a proven entity that can help improve the life skills and study habits of boys and girls across the board."

Moanalua High football coach Arnold Martinez, who oversees the school's varsity and JV programs, estimated at least 80 percent of his varsity players came up from the JV team.

"Without JV, there's no chance to develop athletes, no chance to teach football," Martinez said. "We have 75 kids playing football, and we love these kids. We live with them every day. The structure we give them, the growth that we see. ... We have study halls right after school, 80 percent of our team has a 3.0 GPA during the season.

"Football saved my life. I come from a poor socio-economic background, and it gave me a chance to go to college and get a master's degree."

Hannemann said, "We're trying to create sports programs for middle school students in coordination with the YMCA, but nothing can replace the good and wholesome program which is JV sports."

Rep. James Tokioka, D-15th (Lihue, Koloa), said sports takes on a bigger role in rural areas such as the Neighbor Islands.

"On Kauai, sports is all we have," Tokioka said. "We don't get to watch Coach McMackin's football team, but we do have Kapaa High School, Waimea High School and Kauai High School, and people come out by the thousands to watch the games.

"It's a big part of the kids' lives. A lot of them want to do well in school just so they can play sports."

Kids 'at risk'

McMackin told The Advertiser prior to the meeting that he was not asked to attend, but made it a point to come after hearing that JV sports programs were at risk of being cut.

"This is so important," he said. "I have a lot of pride in Hawai'i; our new jerseys will have 'Hawai'i' written across the front. If we were to cut JV sports, we would be the only state in the country without it, and how shameful is that?"

McMackin said the $1 million in proposed cuts to athletics could soon be canceled out if would-be JV athletes were to turn to crime.

"It costs $80,000 (a year) to incarcerate one person," he said. "If you take 12 of those kids and put them away, that's $1 million right there. Some of these kids are very at-risk, and you can reach these kids at that age, you can influence them. I reach them in college, but I think that great teaching begins at the lower levels."

A long line of speakers also testified on behalf of the Challenger Center of Hawaii, a space education program for students that is based at Barbers Point Elementary School. The program, which costs about $258,000 a year to operate, has served more than 73,000 public and private school students since its inception in 1993. It also was on the list of programs to be exempted from proposed cuts via last night's BOE action.

Lingle questions DOE

In light of the DOE's plan to cut $1 million from its athletics budget, Gov. Linda Lingle has asked the agency to explain spending more than $1.2 million this summer to send some 652 educators to a conference in Florida.

From June 22 to 25, the DOE sent principals, teachers and other educators from 177 schools to a Model Schools Conference at Walt Disney World's Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, said Sandy Goya, spokeswoman for the DOE. Now the governor wants the department to explain the expenditure.

"Given the serious fiscal limits the state is facing, the board's pending deliberations to cut basic programs such as junior varsity sports, I would appreciate knowing how much the Department of Education expended in total for all participants to this conference," Lingle wrote in an Aug. 4 letter to BOE Chairwoman Donna Ikeda.

The Model Schools Conference is the nation's premier conference on education reform, Goya said.

Schools and complexes were allowed to make their own decision about whether to use their school's general funds, or federal funds, to send their educators to the conference, she said.

Staff writer Loren Moreno contributed to this report.