Editor’s Note: First of two parts profiling the Maine Principals’ Association, the governing body of high school sports in Maine.

AUGUSTA – As much as the Maine Principals’ Association is a facilitator of high school events ranging from one-act plays to the dramatics of a state championship basketball game, it also can be a target.

Fans with complaints about the state of the state’s interscholastic sports world have been known to direct their ire toward the MPA, much as other institutions from City Hall to the White House are the frequent focus of citizen wrath.

Perhaps the fact the MPA’s central office and conference center sits on the outskirts of Maine’s capital city adds to the sense that the organization represents big government to those who disagree with decisions related to such potentially touchy topics as increased tournament ticket prices or recruiting concerns.

But those who staff the MPA’s central office say that while the association has an Augusta telephone listing, its home base is as rural as it is urban, representing the interests of schools large and small throughout Maine, educators at all levels, and the 49,000 students statewide who participate in extracurricular activities at the high school level.

“I think sometimes people think it’s half a dozen people sitting down in the office making the decisions,” said MPA executive director Dick Durost. “That’s not the case.

“We work for the membership. All we do is carry out the policies that 155 schools statewide make through their principals in trying to do what is best for all kids. Sometimes what’s best for all kids will make an individual kid or their parent feel like they’re not getting a fair shake, but we need to do what’s best for all kids.”

So what is the MPA?

The Maine Principals’ Association is a private, nonprofit corporation that is really two organizations in one, each with its own budget.

The Division of Professional Activities has a membership of more than 900 of the state’s K-12 principals, assistant principals, vocational technical center directors, and other administrators.

“We provide professional development, give them advice and information centering on educational issues,” said Durost. “We represent them before the Legislature, with the Governor’s Office, with the Department of Education. We provide about 45 days of professional development every year, our major conferences in the spring and fall and then about 40 other days on specific issues around specific educational topics.”

The Division of Interscholastic Activities consists of 155 member public and private schools.

The interscholastic division sponsors invitational championship competition not only in all high school sports, but other activities such as public speaking, jazz festivals, and science fairs.

“Our goal on the interscholastic side is to keep what’s best for the students at the forefront, managing competitions across the state in a manner that creates the most level playing field possible and accomplishes the goal of enabling as many people as possible to participate,” said Gil Lacroix, principal of the Glenburn School and currently president of the MPA.

Each division has a separate management committee of members that make decisions on MPA matters that require immediate attention, otherwise any policy changes or other decisions are made by the full membership at their annual meetings each April and November.

Most of the issues up for discussion by the full membership are addressed initially at a committee level below the management committee. The professional division has 10 such committees, while the interscholastic division has 34, including five with basketball-related responsibilities and others that address everything from cheerleading to National Honor Society, eligibility to classification.

Members serve on committees for three-year terms, with a maximum of one term on a management committee and two terms on a regular committee.

“What really drives our association and makes it work are our committees,” Lacroix said. “Everything we do has a committee of member principals that meets an average of three to five times a year to get its business done.”

Committee composition includes such criteria as geographic balance, grade-level balance, and different-sized schools being represented.

“For one thing, on the interscholastic side, the smallest high school and the largest high school have exactly the same vote,” Durost said. “So if you’re the principal at Bangor High School with 1,500 kids you have the same vote as the principal at Easton High School with 65 kids.”

Coordinating the activities of the MPA committees is one of the bigger responsibilities of the central office employees.

The Augusta office has a staff of nine: Durost, three assistant executive directors, a special projects coordinator, two secretaries, a receptionist and a bookkeeper.

Durost is a former MPA president, and all three of the assistant executive directors, Lawrence LaBrie, Phyllis Deringis and Jeffrey Sturgis, also are former principals.

“Each assistant executive director has half a dozen or more committees that they’re responsible for as far as scheduling the meetings, doing the minutes, and facilitating the meetings, although there is a chairperson for each committee who essentially does that,” Lacroix said.

“The staff is there to serve us, but at the same time because of their experience and the fact that they’re the ones who have been there for a while and have institutional memory, they provide a lot of significant leadership.”

This merger of professional and interscholastic divisions under one association umbrella isn’t unique in New England. Vermont and Connecticut have similar organizations, Durost said, and Massachusetts shares some similarities except for the fact it has separate organizations for elementary-level and middle and high school administrators.

That spirit of consolidation isn’t the case elsewhere across the country.

“Outside of New England in every other state it’s two separate organizations, one that deals with the principals’ issues and one that does the interscholastic activities,” Durost said.

Durost sees benefits in Maine’s organizational structure, which took its present form in 1992 as the result of a merger between the Maine Secondary School Principals’ Association and the Maine Elementary Principals’ Association.

“To me there would be a lot of duplication of effort if that wasn’t the case,” he said. “For us, we think we are able to do things as a staff a lot more cost-effectively than if we were two separate organizations working in two separate buildings trying to work with almost the same group of administrators in two separate ways.”

The budget balancing act

Each division of the MPA has its own budget, generating its own income in an effort to offset its own expenses.

“Those two pools of funds do not mix together,” said Durost. “We do not use money from the tournament to pay for things for principals. We don’t use income from principals’ conferences to pay for the tournament and the activities.

“We separate those budgets so we don’t get accused of using money from kids to take care of principals’ issues.”

The interscholastic budget for the 2002-03 school year was $1.4 million [the professional division budget typically is one-fourth to one-third that amount].

That interscholastic budget is funded almost entirely by the few activities sponsored by the MPA that turn a profit, particularly the high school basketball tournament.

Member schools also are charged dues at the rate of $1 per enrolled student.

“Our desire at the end of the year is to balance out income and expenses for everything,” Durost said. “We know basketball is going to bring in more money than it costs to put it on, and in a given year, we know two or three other things are going to do the same [cheerleading, football depending on the weather, and ice hockey are the likeliest to generate income].

“Everything else is going to be a losing proposition from a financial standpoint. But our member schools through their principals have said that the state cross country championship is as important to the kids who run cross country and their parents as is the state basketball tournament. We’re not going to spend all our money on basketball just because that’s where it comes in, and we’re not going to ignore those cross country kids because they deserve a quality, well-run experience.”

How successful the MPA is in generating income from the revenue-producing sports depends largely on two factors: weather and match-ups.

“If we get two snowstorms during the basketball tournaments, we’re in trouble,” Durost said. “If we get rainy, cold, snowy Saturdays in late October into early November, then people are not as likely to come to a championship soccer game or cross country meet, and it’s the same thing in the spring.

“With the match-ups, there are some communities that will drive halfway around the world to go watch their kids play in a tournament game. There are others with teams in a state championship game where you’re lucky if you can get anybody other than families and girlfriends and boyfriends there.

“It’s always a combination of those things, together with all the expenses, that determine whether we will have a successful year financially or not.”

Chief among expenses on the interscholastic side are facility rental for championship events, event planning and coordination, hiring event staff, and paying for game officials and awards – the MPA spent more than $60,000 during the 2002-03 year in plaques, trophies and medals alone, Durost said.

The 2002-03 interscholastic sports season was not a banner year financially for the interscholastic division – expenses exceeded income by $149,000.

That deficit led to the MPA membership deciding to increase ticket prices for the first time since 1998, from $5 for adults and $3 for students to $7 for adults and $4 for students.

“We have traditionally been on about a five-year cycle where we don’t raise ticket prices until we have to,” he said. “Then hopefully we have a year or two when we get a little more income than expenses, a couple of years when we just about break even, and another year or two when we’re back in a cycle when we’re losing money. Over that four- or five-year period, we hope that’s going to balance out.”

Durost understands there will always be some complaints when prices are raised, but says a comparison between tournament ticket prices and regular-season ticket prices isn’t valid.

“A lot of people complain that they go to their local gym and pay only $2 or $3 to get in, but they forget that the local school system is subsidizing almost all the cost of those games,” he said. “They’re paying for the gym, they’re paying the coach, the officials, they’re paying for the athletic director, they’re paying for the lights, and any money that comes in at the gate just supports that.”