It is, and we're getting what we pay for in most situations.  In TX, the operational costs of athletics are covered by budget allocation (uniforms, necessary equipment, etc). Programs will fundraise, but that is for discretionary items.  It does boggle my mind how, while property tax increases will never fly here due to retirees, if we moved a fraction of a decimal of a percent of the bed tax or sales tax towards public education, we would fundamentally change education in our state. It would mirror the TX model (it isn't perfect, but it's a good model). 65k for teachers right out of school (get more of the best and brightest), well-funded programs, facilities communities can be proud of. Get back to making the school a central part of the community, not an after-thought or black mark.

Apparently not.  

Here's my first rant of 2025.  Can the FHSAA at least keep accurate archive records!?  The sheer amount of misspelled teams, missing entries, incorrect scores and duplications is utterly ridiculous.  This is just football.  I can't imagine how messed up the other sports may be.  

That was a great explanation.  As a home owner, I am more than willing to pay more property taxes to increase teacher pay, have better facilities and to fund sports programming.  This is not even about funding a strong football team.  Rather, its about funding the minimum amount needed just to field any sports team.  Here in Pinellas county, each school gets literally less than $500 for a sports team.  You can't even buy a single helmet for that amount.  My boys PHU wrestling team received $300 to fund the entire season.  That is less than the $400 entry fee into a single wresting tournament.  Therefore, all sports are essentially club sports that are self funded.  I had to pay $500 for two boys to play football and then $600 total for two boys to wrestle.  The wrestling team has to have parents drive the wrestlers to away matches since buses are not funded.  It's ridiculous.

I'm more inclined to say that is the nature of the football.  The FHSAA record books are littered with many examples of this scenario throughout the decades.